Base Stacking
Base stacking interactions in DNA and RNA are due to dispersion attraction, short-range exchange repulsion, and electrostatic interactions, which also contribute to stability. Again, GC stacking interactions with adjacent bases tend to be more favorable. (Note, however, that a GC stacking interaction with the next base pair is geometrically different from a CG interaction.) Base stacking effects are especially important in the secondary structure and tertiary structure of RNA; for example, RNA stem-loop structures are stabilized by base stacking in the loop region.
Read more about this topic: Base Pair
Famous quotes containing the words base and/or stacking:
“I am sure my bones would not rest in an English grave, or my clay mix with the earth of that country. I believe the thought would drive me mad on my death-bed could I suppose that any of my friends would be base enough to convey my carcass back to her soil. I would not even feed her worms if I could help it.”
—George Gordon Noel Byron (1788–1824)
“The Universal Soul, as it is called, has an interest in the stacking of hay, the foddering of cattle, and the draining of peat-meadows.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)