> Unlike DNA, which assumes a simple double-stranded helix, RNA adopts a diverse array of intramolecular structural features including hairpins
DNA can conform to a simple helix but it's absolutely not stored or utilized in that conformation in vivo. DNA also adopts a diverse array of particular _local_ configurations based upon it's own electro-chemical gradients combined with those of the cellular environment it inhabits.
> Many ribozymes cleave co-transcriptionally and so cannot be purchased outright as RNA, otherwise they may cleave upon deblocking and/or dissolving in buffer.
That's kinda funny. Also part of the reason RNA world looks so convincing.
> Unlike DNA, which assumes a simple double-stranded helix, RNA adopts a diverse array of intramolecular structural features including hairpins
DNA can conform to a simple helix but it's absolutely not stored or utilized in that conformation in vivo. DNA also adopts a diverse array of particular _local_ configurations based upon it's own electro-chemical gradients combined with those of the cellular environment it inhabits.
> Many ribozymes cleave co-transcriptionally and so cannot be purchased outright as RNA, otherwise they may cleave upon deblocking and/or dissolving in buffer.
That's kinda funny. Also part of the reason RNA world looks so convincing.
I wonder what percent of "junk" DNA is there just to mediate "viable" local configurations?
Makes you wonder if RNA has read A Thousand Plateaus and decided smooth spaces are the way to self-cleave.