May 15, 2007 (Vol. 27, No. 10)
Rating:
Strong Points: RNA structure and data
Weak Points: Missing structures
Summary:
Here’s a blast from the past—a site I reviewed back in the early days of this column that has grown up bigtime. This is due, no doubt, to the fact that our knowledge of RNA structures is growing with leaps and bounds, just as our knowledge of protein structures is as well. RNA structure is a fascinating subject, in my opinion at least, and is much more interesting than DNA structure, due to the abilities of RNA to form more stable duplexes than DNA and the resulting tendencies of self-paired RNA single strands to form 3-D structures. Witness the tRNAs, rRNAs, and ribozymes. If you want to get overwhelmed, click on the Complete Listing link on the opening page to scroll through the 1,168 RNAs whose structures are listed. I was disappointed that I couldn’t view structures for all of the entries, but the ones I saw were superb.
