An Improved Algorithm for RNA Secondary Structure Prediction

Rune B. Lyngsø, Michael Zuker, Christian N. S. Pedersen
1999 BRICS Report Series  
Though not as abundant in known biological processes as proteins,<br />RNA molecules serve as more than mere intermediaries between<br />DNA and proteins, e.g. as catalytic molecules. Furthermore,<br />RNA secondary structure prediction based on free energy<br />rules for stacking and loop formation remains one of the few major<br />breakthroughs in the field of structure prediction. We present a<br />new method to evaluate all possible internal loops of size at most<br />k in an RNA sequence,
more » ... , in time O(k|s|^2); this is an improvement<br />from the previously used method that uses time O(k^2|s|^2).<br />For unlimited loop size this improves the overall complexity of<br />evaluating RNA secondary structures from O(|s|^4) to O(|s|^3) and<br />the method applies equally well to finding the optimal structure<br />and calculating the equilibrium partition function. We use our<br />method to examine the soundness of setting k = 30, a commonly<br />used heuristic.
doi:10.7146/brics.v6i15.20072 fatcat:56c2l2snkzb3jmwzys7od676nq