Modelling toehold-mediated RNA strand displacement
  We study the thermodynamics and kinetics of an RNA toehold-mediated strand displacement reaction with a recently developed coarse-grained model of RNA. Strand displacement, during which a single strand displaces a different strand previously bound to a complementary substrate strand, is an essential mechanism in active nucleic acid nanotechnology and has also been hypothesized to occur in vivo. We study the rate of displacement reactions as a function of the length of the toehold and temperature and make two experimentally testable predictions: that the displacement is faster if the toehold is placed at the 5' end of the substrate and that the displacement slows down with increasing temperature for longer toeholds. 
Petr \v{S}ulc, Thomas E. Ouldridge, Flavio Romano, Jonathan P. K.   Doye, Ard A. Louis
physics.bio-ph cond-mat.soft physics.chem-ph q-bio.BM