Methods to our madness
- Department of Microbiology and Physiological Systems, University of Massachusetts Medical School, Worcester, Massachusetts 01655-0122, USA
- Corresponding author: allan.jacobson{at}umassmed.edu
This extract was created in the absence of an abstract.
Though this be madness, yet there is method in't. William Shakespeare, Hamlet
In the last 20 years we have witnessed an explosion in our understanding of the ways and means of post-transcriptional control. Novel modes of regulation by and for RNAs of all sizes and shapes have become routine news to a world once dominated by that other nucleic acid, DNA. Not anymore. RNA is God now. To appreciate how that happened, let's consider mRNA. When it came to studying mRNA 1995 was so 20th century, so much your father's Oldsmobile. If you needed to know if an mRNA was present in a sample you'd run a northern, do RT-PCR, or translate it in vitro. To know if it was functional in vivo you'd analyze a polysome gradient. To localize something bound to it, a toeprint. To obtain primary sequence? Generate a cDNA clone and sequence that. And if …
