ArticleThe journal of physical chemistry. B2015
Dispersion interactions between urea and nucleobases contribute to the destabilization of RNA by urea in aqueous solution.
Article in The journal of physical chemistry. B, 2015. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 3 papers.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
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Who cites it
3 citing papers in PubMed, 19 citations in OpenAlex.
- Supramolecular Interactions Modulate RNA:DNA Folding Observed via Nanopore Sensing.Angewandte Chemie (International ed. in English) · 2025Article
- Urea-aromatic interactions in biology.Biophysical reviews · 2020Review
- Energetic, Structural and Dynamic Properties of Nucleobase-Urea Interactions that Aid in Urea Assisted RNA Unfolding.Scientific reports · 2019Article
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Authors and funding
5 authors at 2 institutions in 2 countries.
Funding
Abstract
Urea has long been used to investigate protein folding and, more recently, RNA folding. Studies have proposed that urea denatures RNA by participating in stacking interactions and hydrogen bonds with nucleic acid bases. In this study, the ability of urea to form unconventional stacking interactions with RNA bases is investigated using ab initio calculations (RI-MP2 and CCSD(T) methods with the aug-cc-pVDZ basis set). A total of 29 stable nucleobase-urea stacked complexes are identified in which the intermolecular interaction energies (up to -14 kcal/mol) are dominated by dispersion effects. Natural bond orbital (NBO) and atoms in molecules (AIM) calculations further confirm strong interactions between urea and nucleobases. Calculations on model systems with multiple urea and water molecules interacting with a guanine base lead to a hypothesis that urea molecules along with water are able to form cage-like structures capable of trapping nucleic acid bases in extrahelical states by forming both hydrogen-bonded and dispersion interactions, thereby contributing to the unfolding of RNA in the presence of urea in aqueous solution.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.