RNA structure analysis via the rigid block model

RNA structure is at the forefront of our understanding of the origin of life, and the mechanisms of life regulation and control. RNA plays a primordial role in some viruses. Our knowledge of the importance of RNA in cellular regulation is relatively new, and this knowledge, along with the detailed structural elucidation of the transcription machine, the ribosome, has propelled interest in understanding RNA to a level which starts to closely resemble that given to proteins and DNA. In the process of progressively understanding the landscape of functionality of such a complex polymer as RNA, one practical task left to the structural chemist is to understand the details of how structure relates to large-scale polymer processes. With this in mind the fundamental problems which fuel the work described in this thesis are those of the conformations which RNA’s assume in nature, and the aim to understand how RNA folds. The RNA folding problem can be understood as a mechanical problem. Therefore efforts to determine its solution are not foreign to the use of statistical mechanical methods combined with detailed knowledge of atomic level structure. Such methodology is mainly used in this work in a long-term effort to understand the intrinsic structural features of RNA, and how they might relate to its folding.Ph.D.Includes bibliographical referencesIncludes vitaby Mauricio Esguerra Neir