Figure 6.

Important stacking interactions around the kissing loop. The stacking between the A9 base and the intermolecular G11⋅C10 base pair (Left). The hydrogen bonds in the G11⋅C10 base pairs are shown as blue dotted lines. The stacking between the A9 base and the C13 ribose with its H4′ and H5′/5′′ protons featured in green (Middle). The stacking between G8 base and the A7⋅U12 base pair, and the stacking between the G11 base and the U12 ribose with its H1′ in yellow (Right). The same stacking is observed in both hairpins.