🧬 Wang Lab RNA Toolkit

Fold and visualize RNA secondary structure (Turner-2004 MFE), then read off nucleotide composition & molecular weight and build reverse-complement templates.

RNA Structure Toolkit

Predict & visualize RNA secondary structure

Enter a sequence, fold it, and render the secondary structure as an interactive force-directed diagram. For publication-grade minimum-free-energy folds, send the sequence to the official ViennaRNA server and paste the result back.

1 · Sequence

Letters only. T is converted to U; anything outside A/C/G/U is removed.

Simple hairpin tRNA-Phe (yeast) Stem-loop

Quick fold runs a Turner-2004 nearest-neighbour energy minimization (the same Zuker algorithm and energy model as ViennaRNA RNAfold) directly in your browser — pseudoknot-free. It reproduces RNAfold's default output on our test sequences; for publication-grade results the official server on the right remains authoritative.

2 · Accurate fold (ViennaRNA / mfold)

Real minimum-free-energy folding can't run on this page, so fold on the source and paste the dot-bracket structure back here to render it exactly.

3 · Secondary structure

Drag nucleotides to rearrange · scroll to zoom · press c to center. Rendered with fornac.

About this tool & the algorithms

Quick fold implements the Zuker minimum-free-energy algorithm with the Turner 2004 nearest-neighbour energy model (stacking, hairpin, bulge, internal & multi-loop energies, special tri/tetra/hexa-loops, and the default -d2 dangling-end treatment). The energy parameters were extracted from the ViennaRNA Package, so on our validation set it reproduces RNAfold's default MFE structures exactly (e.g. GGGAGAGCC…CGUCCC(((((((.(((((....)))))...))).)))), ΔG = −11.1 kcal/mol). It is pseudoknot-free and runs to ~800 nt in-browser.

Accurate fold relies on the ViennaRNA RNAfold web server (Turner 2004 energy model) or mfold/UNAFold. Paste the returned dot-bracket string into box 2 to render the exact structure here.

Visualization uses fornac, the browser-native successor to VARNA from the same group (VARNA itself is a Java application and can no longer run inside web browsers).

4 · Template builder (add ➜ reverse ➜ U→T ➜ complement; A↔T, G↔C)
5′ end (always prepended — T7 promoter, fixed):
CTAATACGACTCACTATA ← T7 promoter (always on)
Pipeline: CTAATACGACTCACTATA + [your RNA sequence] → reverse → U→T → complement
5 · Reverse-complement DNA strand
Builds the reverse-complement in DNA (U→T; A↔T, C↔G). FASTA headers are preserved.
Output format:
Synced from the main input box.