Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

Prediction Of Ribonucleic Acid Secondary Structures Using A Heuristic Backtracking Search, Christopher Roman Cuellar

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Ribonucleic acid (RNA) is essential for all forms of life. RNA is made up of a large chain of nucleotide bases: Guanine (G), Uracil (U), Cytosine (C), and Adenine (A). An RNA strand can fold on itself to allow G-C, A-U, and G-U bases to form hydrogen bonds, this is known as a secondary structure. Knowing the secondary structure of an RNA chain is very important because it will allow researchers to better understand its specific functions. RNA will create secondary structures that tend to minimize their free energy. RNA secondary structure prediction is the attempt to predict physical folding …