The Hairpin Elements of Nucleic Acid Structure: DNA and RNA Folding

Abstract

Hairpin molecules have attracted a great deal of interest for many years. On one hand, this is because of their role in cellular processes, the recognition between the codon on mRNA and the anti-codon loop of tRNA being the most outstanding example. On the other hand, the study of the folding in hairpin loops and the thermodynamic parameters governing hairpin formation has been considered as a basis for the description of the stereochemistry of folding in more complicated nucleic acid structures and for the prediction of the secondary structure and its stability in such molecules.