Phylogenetic comparative analysis and the secondary structure of ribonuclease P RNA--a review

The most incisive a priori approach to inferring the higher order structure of large RNAs has proven to be the use of phylogenetic comparisons. This article provides guidelines to the method, using as an illustration the elucidation of the secondary structure of the catalytic RNA subunit of ribonuclease P (RNase P). The resultant structure is compared to the possibilities that are predicted thermodynamically for the RNase P RNA sequences of nine eubacteria.