Comparing Random and Natural RNA Boltzmann Ensembles

A morphospace is an abstract space of theoretically possible biological traits, shapes, or property values. It is interesting to explore which parts of a morphospace life occupies, as compared to those parts which could be occupied, but are not. Comparing random and natural non-coding (nc) RNA secondary structures is an established approach to studying morphospace occupation for RNA structures. Most earlier studies have focused on the minimum free energy (MFE) structure, while relatively few have looked at the Boltzmann distribution, describing the ensemble of energetically suboptimal RNA folds. These suboptimal structures may have important roles and functions, and hence should be examined carefully. Here we compare random and natural ncRNA in terms of their Boltzmann distributions, finding that natural RNA tend to have very similar profiles to random RNA, with the main difference being that natural RNA are slightly more energetically stable, except for very short sequences (20 to 30 nucleotides) which appear to be equally or slightly less stable. We infer that natural ncRNA and random RNA occupy similar parts of the morphospace, indicating that the biophysics of the genotype-phenotype map largely determines the ensemble properties of ncRNA.