C-13-H-1 residual dipolar couplings (RDC) have been measured for the bases and sugars in the theophylline-binding RNA aptamer, dissolved in filamentous phage medium. and used to investigate the long-range structural and dynamic behavior of the molecule in the solution state. The orientation dependent RDC provide additional restraints to further refine the overall structure of the RNA-theophylline complex, whose long-range order was poorly defined in the NOE-based structural ensemble. Structure refinement using RDC normally assumes that molecular alignment can be characterized by a single tensor and that the molecule is essentially rigid. To address the validity of this assumption for the complex of interest, we have analyzed distinct domains of the RNA molecule separately, so that local structure and alignment tensors experienced by each region are independently determined. Alignment tensors for the stem regions of the molecule were allowed to float freely during a restrained molecular dynamics structure refinement protocol and found to converge to similar magnitudes. During the second stage of the calculation, a single alignment tensor was thus applied for the whole molecule and an average molecular conformation satisfying all experimental data was determined. Semirigid-body molecular dynamics calculations were used to reorient the refined helical regions to a relative orientation consistent with this alignment tensor, allowing determination of the global conformation of the molecule. Simultaneously, the local structure of the theophylline-binding core of the molecule was refined under the influence of this common tensor. The final ensemble has an average pairwise root mean square deviation of 1.50 +/- 0.19 Angstrom taken over all heavy atoms, compared to 3.5 +/- 1.1 Angstrom for the ensemble determined without residual dipolar coupling. This study illustrates the importance of considering both the local and long-range nature of RDC when applying these restraints to structure refinements of nucleic acids.