The course provides an introduction to RNA structure and dynamics. The topics will be covered from an historical and technical point of view. Student will be introduced step by step to secondary structure prediction methods and chemical probing experiments and also to structural molecular biology methods (x-ray diffraction and nuclear magnetic resonance). The covered topics include:
• Hierarchical structure annotation (primary/secondary/tertiary).
• RNA chemical structure.
• RNA secondary and tertiary structure.
• Molecular dynamics simulations and integration of simulations and experiments for RNA systems.
Lectures
• Introduction to RNA structure: backbone suites and base pairings.
• RNA structural motifs: helices and loops
• Thermodynamic parameters and secondary structure prediction
• Molecular simulations and RNA structural dynamics

This is an elective course from the PhD in functional and structural genomics. See https://phdgenomics.sissa.it/bussi1