Riboswitches are structured noncoding RNA domains used by many bacteria to monitor the
concentrations of target ligands and regulate gene expression accordingly. In the past 20 …

Live cell RNA imaging using genetically encoded fluorescent labels is an important tool for
monitoring RNA activities. A recently reported RNA aptamer-fluorogen system, the Spinach …

For many decades it was thought that information storage and information transfer were the
main functions of nucleic acids. However, artificial evolution experiments have shown that …

Probes that form covalent bonds with RNA molecules on the basis of their chemical reactivity
would advance our ability to study the transcriptome. We developed a set of electrophilic …

G-Quadruplexes are four-stranded nucleic acid structures typically stabilized by GGGG
tetrads. These structures are intrinsically fluorescent, which expands the known scope of …

A fundamental motif in canonical nucleic acid structure is the base pair. Mutations that
disrupt base pairs are typically destabilizing, but stability can often be restored by a second …

The spontaneous emergence of function from diverse RNA sequence pools is widely
considered an important transition in the origin of life. Here we show that diverse sequence …

RNA aptamers are structured motifs that bind to specific molecules. A growing number of
RNAs bearing aptamer elements, whose functions are modulated by direct binding of …

The spontaneous emergence of function from pools of random sequence RNA is widely
considered an important transition in the origin of life. However, the plausibility of this …

The potential for biopolymers to evolve new structures has important consequences for their
ability to optimize function and our attempts to reconstruct their evolutionary histories. Prior …