I thought I would share this question with the community… It is part of my assignment due on Monday in my Biophysical chemistry class. I will give massive props if anyone can figure it out.
Begin by comparing the given equation to a Boltzmann distribution, solve for (i), and find your way from there. Good Luck!
Closed circular RNA can be supercoiled… think of a phone cord twisting on itself. The energy required to put (i) supercoils is given by dE = Ki^2 where dE is the change in energy, K is the kinetic energy, and i is the number of twists (K ~ 0.4KJ/mol). Show the number of RNA molecules with (i) supercoils is given by a Gaussian distribution with mean =0 (normalized). Compute the relative number of molecules with 0, 1, 2, and 10 supercoils at 37C.
This won’t be helpful, but it may give you an idea of the probability of getting an answer to your question in this forum: there are currently no players in EteRNA who knows enough of this domain to give you even an educated guess. There used to be someone going by the nickname Quasispecies who would possibly have had some knowledge of what you’re talking about. But currently, none. As a matter of fact, EteRNA is not even built (yet) to deal with circular RNA, so no one here has any incentive in learning about this topic.
Maybe the “professionals”, like Rhiju or Jee, would be able to help, but they are no players, they run EteRNA. They may be able to help with this stuff, but they’re so busy, that I wouldn’t count too much on it…