Publication | Closed Access
A New Spectroscopic Approach to the Determination of Helical Secondary Structure in Ribonucleic Acids
91
Citations
0
References
1963
Year
DnaNew Spectroscopic ApproachMolecular BiologyHelical Secondary StructureProtein FoldingStructure DeterminationStructure ElucidationProtein X-ray CrystallographyDna ComputingBiochemistryUnique Three-dimensional StructureRna Structure PredictionOligonucleotideDna ReplicationMolecular ArchitectureRna TransportStructural BiologyNatural SciencesRibonucleic AcidsRibonucleic AcidMedicineRna Molecules
The notion that ribonucleic acid (RNA) molecules might be endowed with a unique three-dimensional structure arose relatively recently. A body of evidence on this point was first presented in 1959 (Doty et al.); only in 1960 was sufficient information available to allow presentation of a general proposal for the molecular structure of RNA (Fresco et al. 1960). It was suggested at that time that all types of RNA molecules, transfer, ribosomal and viral, contain a major proportion of their bases in helical regions of the DNA type. Thus, the only base pairs are adenine-uracil (A-U) and guanine-cytosine (G-C). These intrachain interactions are made possible by hairpin turns, involving three or more non-bonded residues, in the polynucleotide backbone. Imperfections in this helical structure result in non-bonded residues, separating ordered segments or helical regions. In addition, it was shown that non-bonded residues can be looped out of the core of the...