Thermodynamics of RNA-RNA binding

摘要

Background: Reliable prediction of RNA-RNA binding energies is crucial, e.g. for the understanding on RNAi, microRNA-mRNA binding and antisense interactions. The thermodynamics of such RNA-RNA interactions can be understood as the sum of two energy contributions: (1) the energy necessary to 'open' the binding site and (2) the energy gained from hybridization.