ARIEL: an openly accessible database of experimental RNA-ligand binding affinities paired with 3D structures.

ARIEL compiles 278 experimentally measured RNA–ligand complexes with dissociation constants spanning nine orders of magnitude (-log Kd 2.1–11.0) linked to experimental 3D structures.

• Why it matters: Progress in designing RNA-binding small molecules is limited by few experimentally measured binding affinities that are tied to structural data.
• What they did: The team screened 6954 RNA-containing PDB structures, selected 2843 RNA–small-ligand complexes, then manually curated primary literature to extract Kd values and associated measurement details.
• The result: The resulting database includes 179 unique ligands across 171 RNA targets, with Kd methods, conditions, provenance, ligand descriptors, and binding-pocket annotations for openly accessible, versioned releases.

AI summary of the abstract · may contain errors · not medical advice · read the paper.