Ontology highlight
ABSTRACT:
SUBMITTER: Tan ZJ
PROVIDER: S-EPMC3443784 | biostudies-other | 2012 Aug
REPOSITORIES: biostudies-other
Tan Zhi-Jie ZJ Chen Shi-Jie SJ
Biophysical journal 20120801 4
RNAs are negatively charged molecules that reside in cellular environments with macromolecular crowding. Macromolecular confinement can influence the ion effects in RNA folding. In this work, using the recently developed tightly bound ion model for ion fluctuation and correlation, we investigate the effect of confinement on ion-mediated RNA structural collapse for a simple model system. We find that for both Na(+) and Mg(2+), the ion efficiencies in mediating structural collapse/folding are sign ...[more]