Gene Regulation is one of the most important mechanisms at the basis of the widespread diffusion and versatility of organism. It provides the cell with an effective control means over structure and functions, with a direct connection to cellular differentiation, morphogenesis, and adaptability.
Until recently it has been common belief that only proteins were involved in gene regulation; later, regulatory functions have been discovered also for non-coding RNA; in particular, since the discovery of riboswitches such a simplistic perception has changed.
Riboswitches are regulatory elements, usually found in 5' untranslated regions of bacterial mRNA, directly interacting with metabolites as a means of regulating expression of the coding region via a secondary structural switch.
Modelling riboswitch structural rearrangement would be a greater advance, not only for understanding key processes of this RNA functional elements, but will also speed up riboswitches engineering leading to a huge improvement in biotechnological application of these genetic switches.