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:
“For those who are base in judgement do not know the good they hold in their hands until they cast it off.”
—Sophocles (497–406/5 B.C.)
“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)