title: Finding the hairpin in the haystack: searching for RNA motifs.
abstract: A growing list of examples underscores the roles that regulatory RNA motifs play in controlling the genetic repertoire of cells and developing organisms. Once either an RNA-processing signal, a ribozyme, an element that controls translational or mRNA stability or an RNA localization signal has been identified, it is important to search for other RNA sequences that bear similar regulatory signals. While DNA regulatory elements can often be described by a consensus sequence, RNA signals are frequently composed of a combination of sequence and structure motifs. Here, we discuss the approaches that can be used to identify RNA motifs by searching databases.
authors.affiliation: Biocomputing & Structures and Gene Expression Programme, European Molecular Biology Laboratory, Heidelberg, Germany.
authors.forename: T
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Dandekar
authors.forename: M W
authors.initials: MW
authors.lastname: Hentze
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D001483:Base Sequence; D016384:Consensus Sequence; D016208:Databases, Factual; D016247:Information Storage and Retrieval; D008969:Molecular Sequence Data; D009690:Nucleic Acid Conformation; D012313:RNA / Q000737:chemistry*; D012045:Regulatory Sequences, Nucleic Acid; D012689:Sequence Homology, Nucleic Acid
chemical_list: D012313:RNA