title: Progress in designing nucleic acid structures and fine-tuning their interactions.
abstract: The prediction of the structure of biological macromolecules at the atomic level and the design of new meta-stable structures and secondary interactions are critical tests of our understanding of the structures and the inter-atomic forces that underlie molecular biology. The capacity to accurately predict and design new structures and interactions will allow us to create nucleic acid sequences that will fold in new and useful ways. Here, we present some results to demonstrate the progress we have made in designing and assembling new nucleic acid structures that will make an increasingly important contribution to biology and medicine. We call the reaction cycle that exemplifies our approach 'A handshake from a hairpin on the way to a double helix.'
authors.affiliation: Department of Molecular and Cellular Biology, University of Cape Town, Rondebosch 7800, Private Bag, South Africa. Horst@science.uct.ac.za
authors.forename: H H
authors.initials: HH
authors.lastname: Klump
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Chauhan
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Mills
authors.forename: C
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Lin
mesh_terms: D001483:Base Sequence; D002616:Chemical Engineering / Q000379:methods*; D003198:Computer Simulation; D004247:DNA / Q000737:chemistry*; D015195:Drug Design; D008956:Models, Chemical; D008958:Models, Molecular; D008969:Molecular Sequence Data; D013329:Structure-Activity Relationship
chemical_list: D004247:DNA