Integrated DNA Technologies (IDT) and Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI) have launched UNAFold, a software that will detect secondary structures within sequences submitted by customers.
Available for download through a web-based interface on IDT's SciTools website, UNAFold (Unified Nucleic Acid Folding) is a comprehensive software package for nucleic acid folding and hybridisation prediction.
Folding of single-stranded RNA or DNA, or hybridisation between two single strands, is accomplished in a variety of ways.
Partition functions can be computed to derive base pair probabilities and stochastic samples of foldings or hybridisations.
Energy-minimisation methods compute minimum free-energy foldings or hybridisations and can also compute suboptimal foldings that mimic the performance of mfold software.
For melting simulations, the UNAFold package computes not just melting temperatures but entire melting profiles.
UV absorbance at 260nm, heat capacity change and mole fractions of different molecular species are computed as a function of temperature.
Isothermal Titration Calorimetry and van 't Hoff plots are also simulated.
UNAFold can be downloaded free for educational or non-commercial use, however commercial use requires a special licence from RPI.
