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Updated: May 5, 2026

Probing RNA Structure with Dimethyl Sulfate Mutational Profiling with Sequencing In Vitro and in Cells
Published on: December 9, 2022
RNAStructuromeDB: a transcriptome-wide database of predicted RNA secondary structures with integrated APIs for
Abdelraouf O Dapour1, Jacopo Manigrasso2, Warren B Rouse3
1Bioinformatics and Computational Biology Program, Iowa State University, Ames, IA 50011, United States.
Abstract:
RNA structure critically governs biological function in both physiological and pathological contexts, making high-resolution structural maps essential for RNA-targeted therapeutics. Yet, despite recent advances, well-validated structural targets for drug design remain limited. To help bridge this gap, we generated the first genome-scale map of the human RNA structurome by applying ScanFold to >230 000 annotated human pre-mRNA transcripts, identifying sequences likely evolved to form highly stable and functional secondary structures. We also performed a global analysis of regions with z-scores ≤ -2 and statistically characterized their two-dimensional folding patterns. In addition, we developed the RNA-Annotator Pipeline to integrate 20 diverse biological annotations, such as tissue-specific expression and protein interactions, with the structural data. Our results reveal local folding propensities and unusually stable structures with high-confidence architectures, providing insights for prioritizing RNA targets and guiding therapeutic design, including antisense oligonucleotides and small molecules. All ScanFold results are publicly available through RNAStructuromeDB. Using the RNA-Annotator Pipeline, analysis of SMN1 and SMN2 pre-mRNAs showed that a single C-to-T transition in SMN2 induces structural rearrangements that disrupt a critical splicing enhancer. This toolkit establishes an integrated workflow that enables researchers to explore RNA structure-function relationships and accelerate advances in RNA-targeted drug discovery and RNA biology.
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