[Academic question] RNA forms a stable structure similar to DNA by folding

Original link: https://fmcf.cc/life/950/

foreword

This is a question I thought about in a half-dream, and I can’t explain it rationally due to my personal academic limitations. To me, it was no less outrageous than Kekule discovering the structure of the benzene ring in a dream.

text

There is a well-known fact that most of the DNA is a double-stranded structure. Through the principle of complementary base pairing, the different and unique arrangement of bases, the DNA molecule has three characteristics: stability, diversity, specificity, The RNA we know is different from it. Although the phosphates on RNA are still connected to bases, so that they can follow the principle of complementary base pairing, but RNA is a single strand, and a single strand cannot perform complementary pairing.

It is also said that two RNAs must be complementary if they are to be paired, but in most organisms, the function of synthesizing RNA does not include synthesizing an antisense strand, that is, it is impossible to synthesize two complementary pairs in an individual. In this case, the stability of an RNA cannot be guaranteed, and some physiological functions in the human body require the participation of RNA. The most typical example ——Gene expression, genes control the synthesis of proteins to control traits, the process includes transcription and translation, and requires tRNA and mRNA. It is well known that tRNA is the terminal of protein synthesis, and the anticodon on the base of tRNA determines the type of protein, if tRNA cannot guarantee a stable structure, so some uncontrollable proteins will be synthesized, with disastrous consequences. So how is our tRNA guaranteed to be stable? High school biology said that they avoid a large number of mutations in single-stranded RNA by folding to form a stable structure of four-armed four -loop.

According to the research, RNA in the natural state almost always appears in a self-folding way, that is, it performs complementary base pairing with itself, rather than people’s stereotype – RNA is a single strand without complementary base pairing. , in fact it is not a single-chain structure in the traditional sense.

ask questions

Since it is a fold, is it possible that RNA is symmetrical to each other based on an intermediate base, forming an RNA molecule that is highly similar to DNA?

Or are there so many bases in our RNA that are so repetitive that it is difficult for the RNA to fold and pair?

Is there a signaling molecule that induces RNA folding and what is it?

Replenish

The concept of RNA folding was published in 2008 (14 years ago), and it is still a relatively new research field in 2022. Some of its contents cannot be verified, and the definition of this entry and the folding of questions are related. There must be differences, but they are all three-dimensional concepts obtained by folding.

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