RSMViewer: A PyMOL plugin for RNA structural motif visualization
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Updated: Nov 12, 2026

Investigating Protein Sequence-structure-dynamics Relationships with Bio3D-web
Published on: July 16, 2017
Rakib Hasan Rahad1, Smriti Pranjal1, Nabila Shahnaz Khan2
1Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, University of Kansas, Lawrence, KS, USA 66045.
Summary:
RNA structural motifs (RSMs) are recurrent three-dimensional RNA structural elements characterized by conserved three-dimensional geometries and often associated with specific molecular functions. Their identification, validation, and functional characterization frequently require labor-intensive manual inspection. However, existing molecular visualization tools provide limited support for motif-centric exploration, making large-scale visualization and comparative analysis of RNA motifs inefficient and time-consuming. To address this limitation, we present RSMViewer, an open-source PyMOL plug-in that integrates heterogeneous motif annotations and supports batch visualization and efficient structural superimposition of RNA motif instances. RSMViewer streamlines the exploration and comparative analysis of RNA structural motifs, substantially reducing manual effort and facilitating downstream structural and functional interpretation.
Availability And Implementation:
RSMViewer is implemented in Python and is freely available at https://github.com/Rakib-Hasan-Rahad/RSMViewer.git. It is compatible with PyMOL 2.x and later, on all major operating systems.
Supplementary Information:
Supplementary data are available at Bioinformatics online.
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