minihelixn.
/ˌmɪnɪˈhiːlɪks/, U.S. /ˌmɪniˈhilɪks/ Molecular Biology.
A short helical region of a larger nucleic acid molecule, esp. a tRNA; a synthetic analogue of such a region. Originally also: a very short sequence of complementary nucleotides (now rare).
ΚΠ
1978 Nature 10 Aug. 609/1 Acridines and ethidium are frameshift mutagens which intercalate into DNA and RNA, and into minihelices made of complementary dinucleotides.
1982 Science 26 Nov. 873/3 Cech points out that the 15-nucleotide fragment can fold back on itself to form a marginally stable five base-pair mini-helix.
1989 Nature 2 Feb. 478/2 The resulting hairpin minihelix..was synthesized using the template-primer system..and comprises twelve base pairs with a seven-nucleotide loop.
2000 Biochemistry 39 6546 Changing A36 to G in the minihelix resulted in a 260-fold reduction in k(cat) compared to minihelix(Phe) and a 13-fold increase in K(m).
This is a new entry (OED Third Edition, March 2002; most recently modified version published online March 2022).
<
n.1978