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arXiv · 0802.3272

Impact of loop statistics on the thermodynamics of RNA folding

Thomas R. Einert·Paul Näger·Henri Orland·Roland R. Netz
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Abstract

Loops are abundant in native RNA structures and proliferate close to the unfolding transition. By including a statistical weight ~ l^{-c} for loops of length l in the recursion relation for the partition function, we show that the calculated heat capacity depends sensitively on the presence and value of the exponent c, even of short t-RNA. For homo-RNA we analytically calculate the critical temperature and critical exponents which exhibit a non-universal dependence on c.

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Thomas R. Einert, Paul Näger, Henri Orland, Roland R. Netz. 2008-07-29. Impact of loop statistics on the thermodynamics of RNA folding. https://doi.org/10.1103/physrevlett.101.048103

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