RNA structure: bioinformatic analysis

The range of functions ascribed to RNA molecules has grown considerably during recent years. Consequently, the analysis and comparison of RNA sequences have become recurrent tasks in molecular biology. Because the biological function of an RNA is expressed more by its folded architecture than by its sequence, original computational tools adapted to the multifaceted RNA functions have to be developed. Such tools, recently published, enable a user to solve classical problems related to RNA research: constructing ‘structural’ multiple alignments, inferring complete structures and structural motifs from RNA alignments, or searching structural homology in genomic databases.