A theoretical perspective of the physical properties of different RNA modifications with respect to RNA duplexes

Norman H L Chiu; Jennifer H Simpson; Hongzhou Wang; Bakhos A Tannous

doi:10.1016/j.bbadva.2021.100025

A theoretical perspective of the physical properties of different RNA modifications with respect to RNA duplexes

BBA Adv. 2021 Sep 22:1:100025. doi: 10.1016/j.bbadva.2021.100025. eCollection 2021.

Authors

Norman H L Chiu^{1

2}, Jennifer H Simpson¹, Hongzhou Wang¹, Bakhos A Tannous^{3

4}

Affiliations

¹ Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, University of North Carolina Greensboro, Greensboro, NC 27402, United States.
² Joint School of Nanoscience and Nanoengineering, University of North Carolina Greensboro, Greensboro, NC 27401, United States.
³ Experimental Therapeutics and Molecular Imaging Laboratory, Department of Neurology, Neuro-Oncology Division, Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, MA 02129, United States.
⁴ Neuroscience Program, Harvard Medical School, Boston MA 02129, United States.

Abstract

Epitranscriptomic variations include >140 different RNA modifications, many of which can serve as disease biomarkers. Owing to the challenges on synthesizing modified RNA oligos, majority of earlier studies on the effects of RNA modifications to RNA duplexes focused on selected individual epitranscriptomic variation. There are also limited development on the computational modeling of RNA duplexes containing a specific epitranscriptomic variation. This study aims to theoretically estimate the physical properties of different modified ribonucleosides and compare their variations with respect to altering the molecular structure of an RNA duplex.