rnaup

Use when calculating thermodynamics of RNA-RNA interactions, including accessibility and binding energy predictions for RNA duplex formation.

SKILL.md

GitHub

rnaup

Quick Start

  • Command: RNAup [OPTIONS]
  • Local executable: /home/vimalinx/miniforge3/envs/bio/bin/RNAup
  • Reference: See references/help.md for full option details

When To Use This Tool

  • Use RNAup when you need RNA-RNA interaction predictions that include site accessibility, not just duplex energy.
  • It is appropriate for interaction screens where opening energy of the binding site matters, such as small RNA target accessibility analyses.
  • Use -w to cap the maximum interaction length when looking for short local interactions.
  • Use -b when you want unpaired-region probabilities reported for both molecules instead of the default target-focused view.

Common Patterns

# Basic accessibility-aware interaction calculation
printf 'GGGAAAUCC\nGGAUUUCCC\n' | RNAup

# Increase the maximal interaction length
printf 'GGGAAAUCC\nGGAUUUCCC\n' | RNAup -w 40

# Report unpaired-region probabilities for both RNAs
printf 'GGGAAAUCC\nGGAUUUCCC\n' | RNAup -b

# Change the unstructured output region length
printf 'GGGAAAUCC\nGGAUUUCCC\n' | RNAup -u 8

Recommended Workflow

  1. Prepare input sequences in FASTA or plain text format (T automatically converted to U unless --noconv is set)
  2. Run RNAup with appropriate options (e.g., -w for max interaction length, -b for both RNAs)
  3. Review output for binding energies and unpaired probabilities
  4. Adjust parameters like -T for temperature or --salt for salt concentration if needed

Guardrails

  • Default interaction window is 25 nucleotides; increase with -w for longer interactions
  • Use -C for structure constraints only if you have reliable constraint data
  • Verify energy parameters are appropriate for your organism or use -P to provide custom parameters