title: General combinatorics of RNA hairpins and cloverleaves.
abstract: For an abstract single-strand RNA, a combinatorial analysis is given for two important structures, hairpins and cloverleaves. The total number of hairpins and cloverleaves of a given length with minimal hairpin loop length m(m > 0) and with minimal stack length l(l > 0) is computed, under the assumption that all base pairs can occur.
authors.affiliation: Department of Applied Mathematics, Dalian University of Technology, Dalian 116024, China. dragonbw@163.com
authors.forename: Bo
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Liao
authors.forename: Tian-ming
authors.initials: TM
authors.lastname: Wang
mesh_terms: D000465:Algorithms; D001483:Base Sequence; D020650:Combinatorial Chemistry Techniques; D008954:Models, Biological; D009690:Nucleic Acid Conformation; D012313:RNA / Q000737:chemistry*
chemical_list: D012313:RNA