Stable triplet of uracil-uracil basepairs in a small antisense RNA

The interaction between ant (antirepressor) mRNA and its antisense RNA, sar (small antisense RNA), is important in regulation of the development of bacteriophage P22. Sar is 68-69 nucleotides in length and is believed to consist of two hairpin structures separated by a small inter-hairpin region, followed by a short 3' tail [Schaefer and McClure RNA 1997, 3, 141-156]. A novel feature of the proposed secondary structure of the first hairpin is a extremely rare triple U:U base stack. Heteronuclear NMR studies presented here show that the first hairpin does not possess a unique structure in the absence of the second hairpin. However, it acquires a well-defined structure within full length sar. Remarkably, the triple U:U stack appears to be a stable feature of the first hairpin, regardless of the presence or absence of the second hairpin.