rnasubopt
Quick Start
- Command:
RNAsubopt - Local executable:
/home/vimalinx/miniforge3/envs/bio/bin/RNAsubopt - Full reference: See
references/help.mdfor complete options and parameter details
When To Use This Tool
- Use
RNAsuboptwhen you need a set of plausible secondary structures instead of a single best fold. - Use
-eto enumerate all structures within an energy band above the MFE for short or moderate-length RNAs. - Use
-pwhen exhaustive enumeration would explode and you instead want Boltzmann-weighted sampling from the ensemble. - Reach for
-z,-D,-c, or-gwhen the question is specifically about Zuker suboptimals, density of states, circular RNAs, or G-quadruplex-aware folding. - It is also appropriate when experimental probing data should bias the structure ensemble through
--shapeor--sp-data.
Common Patterns
# Enumerate structures within 2 kcal/mol of the MFE
printf 'GGGAAAUCC\n' | RNAsubopt -e 2
# Sample 100 structures from the Boltzmann ensemble
printf 'GGGAAAUCC\n' | RNAsubopt -p 100
# Sort enumerated suboptimal structures
printf 'GGGAAAUCC\n' | RNAsubopt -e 2 -s
# Compute density of states instead of explicit structures
printf 'GGGAAAUCC\n' | RNAsubopt -D
Recommended Workflow
- Prepare RNA sequence input via stdin or specify an input file with
-i - Select algorithm mode: energy range enumeration (
-e), stochastic sampling (-p), or Zuker suboptimals (-z) - Run
RNAsuboptwith appropriate parameters (e.g.,-e 3.0for structures within 3 kcal/mol of MFE,-p 1000for 1000 sampled structures) - Review output containing dot-bracket secondary structures followed by energy values in kcal/mol
Guardrails
- Output size grows exponentially with sequence length and energy range; use conservative
-evalues or switch to sampling (-p) for long sequences - Default temperature is 37°C; adjust with
-Tfor non-physiological or organism-specific conditions - Nucleotide "T" is automatically converted to "U" by default; use
--noconvto preserve input exactly