RNA Structure and Function

Ribonucleic acid (RNA) is a polymer of nucleotides each consisting of a ribose, a phosphate, and a nitrogenous base (A, C, G or U) and assumes a primary (linear sequence), secondary (helices, bulges, loops, and junctions), tertiary the local conformation in secondary-structure junctions, the formation of sequence-specific interactions, and the formation of stabilizing stacking and backbone interactions), quaternary (supermolecular organization such as kissing-loop dimerization and homo-oligomer formation) or quinary (weak and nonspecific interaction with cellular metabolites) structure because of the interactions among its components. Depending on whether or not it encodes protein, RNA is separated into coding…