Sa. Strobel et Ja. Doudna, RNA SEEING DOUBLE - CLOSE-PACKING OF HELICES IN RNA TERTIARY STRUCTURE, Trends in biochemical sciences, 22(7), 1997, pp. 262-266
Structured RNA molecules play essential roles in RNA processing, chrom
osome maintenance and protein biosynthesis. RNA necessarily uses diffe
rent strategies than proteins for folding and assembly of complex arch
itectures. The RNA-folding problem is largely an issue of helical pack
ing: how does RNA organize and pack short, double-helical segments to
produce active sites and recognition motifs for proteins? Noncanonical
base pairs, metal ions and 2'-hydroxyl groups are key elements in RNA
higher-order structure formation.