Technique Offers New View Of Dynamic Biological Landscape

Technique Offers New View Of Dynamic Biological Landscape: "The E-MAP technique consists of selectively 'dialing down' the activity of a multitude of gene pairs and comparing the effects of those changes to those that result when each gene is dialed down individually. Many genes' activity could be reduced by eliminating them entirely, but for the subset of genes that are essential for yeast growth -- whose complete deletion would kill the cell -- the researchers invented a high throughput technique to manipulate the half-life of their messenger RNA (mRNA). Since mRNA is a genetic intermediate during the conversion of a gene to protein, reducing its lifespan by mutating the mRNA message lowers the amount of protein the cell can produce. The group called this approach 'decreased abundance by mRNA perturbation' (DAmP). "