High throughput platform to explore RNA–protein interactomes

Abstract

RNA binding proteins (RBPs) and RNA interaction is an emerging topic in molecular biology. Many reports showed that such interactions contribute to many cellular processes as well as disease development. Several standard in vitro and in vivo methods were developed to fulfill the needs of this RBP–RNA interaction study to explore their biological functions. However, these methods have their limitations in terms of throughput. In this review, we emphasize two important high throughput methods to studying RBP–RNA interactions, affinity purification and protein microarray. These methods have recently become robust techniques regarding their efficiency in systematically analyzing RBP–RNA interactions. Here, we provide technique overviews, strategies and applications of these methods during biological research. Although these technologies are just beginning to be explored, they will be most important methods in this study.

• High throughput
• microarray
• proteome
• protein microarray
• pull down
• RNA
• RNA binding protein
• RNA immunoprecipitation assay

Acknowledgements

Thanks to Erik Holmqvist, PhD, for providing the representative image of protein microarray.

Declaration of interest

The authors report no declarations of interest. This research is supported by grant NHRI-EX102-10233SC from National Health Research Institute, Taiwan; NSC99-2627-M-008-003, NSC100-2627-M-008-003, NSC100-2320-B-008-001 and NSC101-2320-B-008-004-MY3 from the National Science Council, Taiwan; 102NCU-CGH-07 from the joint grant of National Central University and Cathay General Hospital.