Parametric analysis of RNA branching configurations
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Updated: Jun 5, 2026

Visualization and Quantification of Intermolecular RNA Base Pairing in in vitro RNA Clusters Using Split Broccoli RNA Reporters
Published on: May 29, 2026
Valerie Hower1, Christine E Heitsch
1Department of Mathematics, University of California, Berkeley, 94720, USA. vhower@math.berkeley.edu
Abstract:
Motivated by recent work in parametric sequence alignment, we study the parameter space for scoring RNA folds and construct an RNA polytope. A vertex of this polytope corresponds to RNA secondary structures with common branching. We use this polytope and its normal fan to study the effect of varying three parameters in the free energy model that are not determined experimentally. Our results indicate that variation of these specific parameters does not have a dramatic effect on the structures predicted by the free energy model. We additionally map a collection of known RNA secondary structures to the RNA polytope.
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