FRASS: the web-server for RNA structural comparison.
BACKGROUND
The impressive increase of novel RNA structures, during the past few years, demands automated methods for structure comparison. While many algorithms handle only small motifs, few techniques, developed in recent years, (ARTS, DIAL, SARA, SARSA, and LaJolla) are available for the structural comparison of large and intact RNA molecules.


RESULTS
The FRASS web-server represents a RNA chain with its Gauss integrals and allows one to compare structures of RNA chains and to find similar entries in a database derived from the Protein Data Bank. We observed that FRASS scores correlate well with the ARTS and LaJolla similarity scores. Moreover, the-web server can also reproduce satisfactorily the DARTS classification of RNA 3D structures and the classification of the SCOR functions that was obtained by the SARA method.


CONCLUSIONS
The FRASS web-server can be easily used to detect relationships among RNA molecules and to scan efficiently the rapidly enlarging structural databases.
Kirillova
Svetlana
S
Department of Structural and Computational Biology, Max F Perutz Laboratories, Vienna University, Campus Vienna Biocenter 5, A-1030 Vienna, Austria. sviatlana.kirylava@univie.ac.at
Tosatto
Silvio C E
SC
Carugo
Oliviero
O
D030562:Databases, Protein; D023281:Genomics / Q000379:methods*; D020407:Internet; D009690:Nucleic Acid Conformation; D012313:RNA / Q000737:chemistry*; D017423:Sequence Analysis, RNA / Q000379:methods; D012984:Software
D012313:RNA