title: antaRNA: ant colony-based RNA sequence design.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  RNA sequence design is studied at least as long as the classical folding problem. Although for the latter the functional fold of an RNA molecule is to be found ,: inverse folding tries to identify RNA sequences that fold into a function-specific target structure. In combination with RNA-based biotechnology and synthetic biology ,: reliable RNA sequence design becomes a crucial step to generate novel biochemical components.
  
  
  RESULTS
  In this article ,: the computational tool antaRNA is presented. It is capable of compiling RNA sequences for a given structure that comply in addition with an adjustable full range objective GC-content distribution ,: specific sequence constraints and additional fuzzy structure constraints. antaRNA applies ant colony optimization meta-heuristics and its superior performance is shown on a biological datasets.
  
  
  METHODS
  http://www.bioinf.uni-freiburg.de/Software/antaRNA CONTACT: backofen@informatik.uni-freiburg.de
  
  
  BACKGROUND
  Supplementary data are available at Bioinformatics online.
authors.affiliation: Bioinformatics Group, Department of Computer Science, University of Freiburg, Georges-Köhler-Allee 106, 79110 Freiburg, Germany.
authors.forename: Robert
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Kleinkauf
authors.affiliation: Bioinformatics Group, Department of Computer Science, University of Freiburg, Georges-Köhler-Allee 106, 79110 Freiburg, Germany.
authors.forename: Martin
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Mann
authors.affiliation: Bioinformatics Group, Department of Computer Science, University of Freiburg, Georges-Köhler-Allee 106, 79110 Freiburg, Germany, Center for Biological Signaling Studies (BIOSS), University of Freiburg, Germany, Center for Biological Systems Analysis (ZBSA), University of Freiburg, Germany and Center for non-coding RNA in Technology and Health, University of Copenhagen, Grønnegårdsvej 3, DK-1870 Frederiksberg C, Denmark.
authors.forename: Rolf
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Backofen
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D001000:Ants / Q000235:genetics*; D001482:Base Composition / Q000235:genetics; D001483:Base Sequence; D030541:Databases, Genetic; D017423:Sequence Analysis, RNA / Q000379:methods*; D012984:Software