Tree-representation of the bacteriophage MS2 coat protein gene.

(A) The inset gives a coarse-grained cartoon diagram of the full-nucleotide structure with explicit base-pairing, which is stored in the model. Bound ribosome is coloured yellow, with purple bases showing the location of the ribosome P-site. (B) The coarse-grained representation of the mRNA structure is translated into the rooted tree data structure shown, where each numbered node in the tree represents a coarse-grained helix in the cartoon diagram. Green arrows denote links to leaf nodes, while red arrows denote links to root nodes. Links to the main root node 0 denoting the 5’ end of the mRNA are not shown for simplicity. Black arrows between nodes show links in the linked list data structure which stores neighbour information for the tree.