Interaction of the important minor groove binder Hoechst 33258 with poly(A).poly(U) was studied using isothermal titration calorimetry. The equilibrium constant of the association was calculated to be (4.00 +/- 0.80) 10(6) M-1 at 298.15 K. The Hoechst RNA binding was driven by large negative enthalpy contributions. The equilibrium constant values for the binding reaction decreased with increasing [Na+] concentration. Parsing of the standard molar Gibbs energy change revealed that non-polyelectrolytic forces dominated the complexation process at all the salt concentrations studied. Temperature dependent calorimetric studies revealed that the equilibrium constant decreased in magnitude with increasing temperature in the range (288.15 +/- 0.10)-(308.15 +/- 0.10) K. Furthermore, there were significant alterations in the thermodynamic parameters with change in temperature; the binding became increasingly enthalpy driven and the standard molar entropic contribution decreased in magnitude and became unfavourable as the temperature was increased. Negative heat capacity change and an enthalpy-entropy compensation phenomenon were also observed. The data observed may be useful for developing structure selective RNA-based therapeutics. (C) 2018 Elsevier Ltd.