Nucleic acid structure refers to the structure of nucleic acids such as DNA and RNA It is often divided into four different levels:
* Primary structure—the raw sequence of nucleobases of each of the component DNA strands;
* Secondary structure—the set of interactions between bases, i.e., which parts of which strands are bound to each other;
* Tertiary structure—the locations of the atoms in three-dimensional space, taking into consideration geometrical and steric constraints; and
* Quaternary structure—the higher-level organization of DNA in chromatin, or to the interactions between separate RNA units in the ribosome or spliceosome.
See also
* Nucleic acid double helix
* Nucleic acid structure determination (experimental)
* Nucleic acid structure prediction (computational)
* DNA nanotechnology
* Nucleic acid design
* Nucleic acid thermodynamics
* DNA supercoil
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