A Standard Reference Frame for the Description
of Nucleic Acid Base-pair Geometry

A common point of reference is needed to describe the three-dimensional arrangements of bases and base pairs in nucleic acid structures. [1]. For example, parts of a structure, which appear "normal" according to one computational scheme, may be highly unusual according to another and vice versa. It is thus difficult to carry out comprehensive comparisons of nucleic acid structures and to pinpoint unique conformational features in individual structures. In order to resolve these issues, a group of researchers who create and use the different software packages have proposed the standard base reference frames outlined below for nucleic acid conformational analysis.

Journal of Molecular Biology(2001) 313: 229 - 237
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