Protein-Nucleic Acid Interactions

The biological network is intricately woven by several entities which work in cellular system in a co-ordinated manner as a result of different types of interactions (protein-protein interactions, protein-RNA and protein-DNA interactions). Among them, the protein-nucleic interactions play an important role in regulating cell function and disruption among these interactions leads to catastrophic consequences within the biological system. The protein-nucleic acid interactions are integrated into several key cellular processes which include regulation of gene expression, replication, recombination, repair, translation, transcription, packaging of nucleic acids and the formation of cellular machinery. In this chapter, we will discuss the several methods by which we can analyse protein-nucleic acid interactions.

Keywords: Chromatin Immunoprecipitation, EMSA, Gel Shift Assays, miRNAs, SDS-PAGE, Transcriptional factors, Untranslated regions (UTR).