RNApasta

RNApasta analyzes and edits RNA sequence structural alignments to characterize structural variation in noncoding RNAs.

Key Features:

• Statistical Analysis: Generates detailed statistics from aligned RNA sequences to quantify structural variation.
• Editing Capabilities: Edits alignments to accommodate presence or absence of structural motifs such as stem-loops and pseudoknots.
• Variability Characterization: Characterizes variation in structural elements, specifically stem and loop lengths, and supports phylogenetic analysis of these variations.
• Homogeneous Subset Development: Produces homogeneous subsets from variable alignments to focus on specific structural features or evolutionary traits.

Scientific Applications:

• Noncoding RNA structural analysis: Analyzes structural variations and evolutionary patterns in noncoding RNAs.
• mir-31 pre-microRNA loop-length study: Applied to mir-31 pre-microRNA sequences to analyze loop length variation and infer that longer-loop sequences share a single evolutionary origin.

Methodology:

Integrates statistical and phylogenetic analyses to assess structural variations within RNA alignments.