Related papers: Viral RNA as a branched polymer
Formation of base pairs between the nucleotides of an RNA sequence gives rise to a complex and often highly branched RNA structure. While numerous studies have demonstrated the functional importance of the high degree of RNA branching --…
Under many in vitro conditions, some small viruses spontaneously encapsidate a single stranded (ss) RNA into a protein shell called the capsid. While viral RNAs are found to be compact and highly branched because of long distance…
It is conceivable that an RNA virus could use a polysome, that is, a string of ribosomes covering the RNA strand, to protect the genetic material from degradation inside a host cell. This paper discusses how such a virus might operate, and…
Simple RNA viruses efficiently encapsulate their genome into a nano-sized protein shell: the capsid. Spontaneous co-assembly of the genome and the capsid proteins is driven predominantly by electrostatic interactions between the negatively…
The problem of RNA genomes packaged inside spherical viruses is studied. The viral capsid is modeled as a hollowed sphere. The attraction between RNA molecules and the inner viral capsid is assumed to be non-specific and occurs at the inner…
Many simple RNA viruses enclose their genetic material by a protein shell called the capsid. While the capsid structures are well characterized for most viruses, the structure of RNA inside the shells and the factors contributing to it…
Many single-stranded (ss) RNA viruses self assemble from capsid protein subunits and the nucleic acid to form an infectious virion. It is believed that the electrostatic interactions between the negatively charged RNA and the positively…
Simple RNA viruses self-assemble spontaneously and encapsulate their genome into a shell called the capsid. This process is mainly driven by the attractive electrostatic interaction between the positive charges on capsid proteins and the…
The statistical mechanics of a treelike polymer in a confining volume is relevant to the packaging of the genome in RNA viruses. Making use of the mapping of the grand partition function of this system onto the statistical mechanics of a…
The behavior of annealed branched polymers near adsorbing surfaces plays a fundamental role in many biological and industrial processes. Most importantly single stranded RNA in solution tends to fold up and self-bind to form a highly…
The kinetic folding of RNA sequences into secondary structures is modeled as a complex adaptive system, the components of which are possible RNA structural rearrangements (SRs) and their associated bases and base pairs. RNA bases and base…
RNA molecules are essential cellular machines performing a wide variety of functions for which a specific three-dimensional structure is required. Over the last several years, experimental determination of RNA structures through X-ray…
Capsids of many viruses assemble around nucleic acids or other polymers. Understanding how the properties of the packaged polymer affect the assembly process could promote biomedical efforts to prevent viral assembly or nanomaterials…
Shapes of interacting RNA complexes are studied using a filtration via their topological genus. A shape of an RNA complex is obtained by (iteratively) collapsing stacks and eliminating hairpin loops. This shape-projection preserves the…
We present a simple kinetic model for the assembly of small single-stranded RNA viruses that can be used to carry out analytical packaging contests between different types of RNA molecules. The RNA selection mechanism is purely kinetic and…
The ongoing effort to detect and characterize physical entanglement in biopolymers has so far established that knots are present in many globular proteins and also abound in viral DNA packaged inside bacteriophages. RNA molecules, on the…
We enumerate the number of RNA contact structures according to their genus, i.e. the topological character of their pseudoknots. By using a recently proposed matrix model formulation for the RNA folding problem, we obtain exact results for…
Determination of sizes and flexibilities of RNA molecules is important in understanding the nature of packing in folded structures and in elucidating interactions between RNA and DNA or proteins. Using the coordinates of the structures of…
Viruses can amplify their genomes following different replication modes (RMs) ranging from the stamping machine replication (SMR) model to the geometric replication (GR) model. Different RMs are expected to produce different evolutionary…
Atomically detailed simulations of RNA folding have proven very challenging in view of the difficulties of developing realistic force fields and the intrinsic computational complexity of sampling rare conformational transitions. To tackle…