The roles of protonated nucleobases in stabilizing different structural motifs and in facilitating catalytic functions of RNA are well known. Among different polar sites of all the nucleobases, N7 of guanine has the highest protonation propensity at physiological pH. However, unlike other easily protonable sites such as N1 and N3 of adenine or N3 of cytosine, N7 protonation of guanine does not lead to the stabilization of base pairs involving its protonated Hoogsteen edge. It also does not facilitate its participation in any acid-base catalysis process. To explore the possible roles of N7 protonated guanine, we have studied its base pairing potentials involving WatsonCrick and sugar edges, which undergo major charge redistribution upon N7 protonation. We have carried out quantum chemical geometry optimization at the M05-2X/6-311G+(2d,2p) level, followed by interaction energy calculation at the MP2/aug-cc-pVDZ level, along with the analysis of the context of occurrence for selected base pairs involving the sugar edge or the WatsonCrick edge of guanine within a non-redundant set of 167 RNA crystal structures. Our results suggest that, four base pairs - G:C W:W trans, G:rC W:S cis, G:G W:H cis and G:G S:H trans may involve N7 protonated guanine. These base pairs deviate significantly from their respective experimental geometries upon QM optimization, but they retain their experimental geometries if guanine N7 protonation is considered during optimization. Our study also reveals the role of guanine N7 protonation (i) in stabilizing important RNA structural motifs, (ii) in providing a framework for designing pH driven molecular motors and (iii) in providing an alternative strategy to mimic the effect of post-transcriptional changes.

The astonishing diversity in folding patterns of RNA threedimensional (3D) structures is crafted by myriads of noncovalent contacts, of which base pairing and stacking are the most prominent. A systematic and comprehensive classification and annotation of these interactions is necessary for a molecular-level understanding of their roles. However, unlike in the case of base pairing, where a widely accepted nomenclature and classification scheme exists in the public domain, currently available classification schemes for base−base stacking need major enhancements to comprehensively capture the necessary features underlying the rich stacking diversity in RNA. Here, we extend the previous stacking classification based on nucleobase interacting faces by introducing a structurally intuitive geometry-cum topology-based scheme. Specifically, a stack is first classified in terms of the geometry described by the relative orientation of the glycosidic bonds, which generates eight basic stacking geometric families for heterodimeric stacks and six of those for homodimeric stacks. Further annotation in terms of the identity of the bases and the region of involvement of purines (five-membered, six-membered, or both rings) leads to the enumeration of 384 distinct RNA base stacks. Based on our classification scheme, we present an algorithm for automated identification of stacks in RNA crystal structures and analyze the stacking context in selected RNA structures. Overall, the work described here is expected to greatly facilitate the structure-based RNA research.

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In this paper we introduce a distortion free watermarking technique for relational databases based on the Abstract Interpretation framework. The watermarking technique is partition based. The partitioning can be seen as a virtual grouping, which does not change neither the value of the table's elements nor their physical positions. Instead of inserting the watermark directly to the database partition, we treat it as an abstract representation of that concrete partition, such that any change in the concrete domain reflects in its abstract counterpart. The main idea is to generate a binary image of the partition as a watermark of that partition, that serves as ownership proof as well as tamper detection

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