RAFFT: Efficient Prediction of RNA Folding Pathways

Authors: Opuu V, Merleau NSC, Messow V, Smerlak M

Published in: PLoS Computational Biology (2022)

Citations: 5

Abstract:
RNA molecules fold through complex kinetic pathways before reaching their thermodynamic minimum, and understanding these pathways is crucial for RNA function. RAFFT introduces a computationally efficient method that uses the Fast Fourier Transform to identify likely intermediate structures along RNA folding pathways. By exploiting the mathematical structure of base-pair stacking energies, RAFFT achieves orders-of-magnitude speedups over exhaustive path enumeration, enabling study of folding dynamics for sequences previously intractable.