A statistical test for conserved RNA structure shows lack of evidence for structure in lncRNAs.

Rivas, Elena; Clements, Jody; Eddy, Sean R · Nat Methods · 2017

basic_science · Level V

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Abstract

Many functional RNAs have an evolutionarily conserved secondary structure. Conservation of RNA base pairing induces pairwise covariations in sequence alignments. We developed a computational method, R-scape (RNA Structural Covariation Above Phylogenetic Expectation), that quantitatively tests whether covariation analysis supports the presence of a conserved RNA secondary structure. R-scape analysis finds no statistically significant support for proposed secondary structures of the long noncoding RNAs HOTAIR, SRA, and Xist.

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