Dot plots were originally introduced in bioinformatics as dot-containing images used to compare biological sequences and identify regions of close similarity between them. In addition to similarity, dot plots were extended to possibly represent interactions between building blocks of biological sequences, where the dots can vary in size or color according to desired features. In this survey, we...

MOTIVATION Comparative modeling of RNA is known to be important for making accurate secondary structure predictions. RNA structure prediction tools such as PPfold or RNAalifold use an aligned set of sequences in predictions. Obtaining a multiple alignment from a set of sequences is quite a challenging problem itself, and the quality of the alignment can affect the quality of a prediction. By im...

The prediction of secondary RNA folds from primary sequences continues to be an important area of research given the significance of RNA molecules in biological processes such as gene regulation. To facilitate this effort, graph models of secondary structure have been developed to quantify and thereby characterize the topological properties of the secondary folds. In this work we utilize a mult...

Secondary structure prediction is a standard tool in the analysis of RNA sequences. The prediction of RNA secondary structures is inherently non-local. This makes the analysis of long sequences (more than 4000 nucleotides) infeasible on present-day workstations. An implementation of the secondary structure prediction algorithm for hypercube-type parallel computers allows to compute eeciently th...

Prediction of RNA secondary structure is important in the functional analysis of RNA molecules. The RDfolder web server described in this paper provides two methods for prediction of RNA secondary structure: random stacking of helical regions and helical regions distribution. The random stacking method predicts secondary structure by Monte Carlo simulations. The method of helical regions distri...

RNAs are important elements in the metabolism of all organisms. The function of many RNAs is crucially dependent on their structure. Secondary structure is one of the most important factors determining 3d-structure, and functions. Having a more in-depth knowledge about the secondary structure of RNAs would provide researchers a better insight for understanding their functionality. In the last t...

The function of many RNAs depends crucially on their structure. Therefore, the design of RNA molecules with specific structural properties has many potential applications, e.g. in the context of investigating the function of biological RNAs, of creating new ribozymes, or of designing artificial RNA nanostructures. Here, we present a new algorithm for solving the following RNA secondary structur...

Background RNA secondary structure is essential to understand the mechanism of RNAs. Method In this paper, fledFold, a novel software for RNA secondary structure prediction, is introduced. It combines both thermodynamic and kinetic factors of RNA secondary structures and can predict RNA secondary structures from their primary sequences with local personal computers. Results FledFold is impl...

RNA sequences fold upon themselves to form complex structures. Functional analysis of most biological RNAs requires knowledge of secondary structure arrangements and tertiary base interactions. Therefore, rapid and comprehensive methods for assessing RNA structure are highly desirable. Computational tools are oftentimes employed for prediction of secondary structure. However, a greater degree o...

Existing computational methods for RNA secondary-structure prediction tacitly assume RNA to only encode functional RNA structures. However, experimental studies have revealed that some RNA sequences, e.g. compact viral genomes, can simultaneously encode functional RNA structures as well as proteins, and evidence is accumulating that this phenomenon may also be found in Eukaryotes. We here prese...