Localization of strain in the RNA backbone and its functional implication

It is known that an RNA molecule capable of self-splicing shares a common pattern of Watson-Crick base paris with other RNA species endowed with the same capability. The aim of this work is to introduce a minimal model Hamiltonian which determines a localized strain in the RNA backbone as the search for the molecular conformation is subject to the constraint imposed by the concensus secondary structure. The site where the strain is localized is shown to coincide with the splicing site of the molecule. As justified posteriori, the level of structural complexity of the model is sufficient to account for energy localization in a nontrivial fashion.