Research & Technology

The Ribonomics Technology Platform offers a powerful approach to the understanding of cellular pathways and gene function in a disease-relevant context.

Cells employ a special class of regulatory proteins called RNA binding proteins (RBPs) to bring together diverse sets of genes needed to regulate or accomplish complex cellular processes. In contrast to transcription factors that regulate the production of RNA messages, RBPs coordinate the utilization of RNA messages. Thus, cells use RBPs to bridge the gap between the genome and the proteome and to control cellular mechanisms that give rise to the complexity of the genome. RNA binding proteins organize cellular RNAs into discrete clusters that can be independently partitioned and efficiently regulated. Cells exploit this partitioning to regulate the biological fate of the bound mRNA subsets (i.e. localization, protein translation, stability, etc.).

The organization of RNA messages by RBPs is achieved through formation of RiboNucleoProtein (RNP) complexes. RNPs have been demonstrated to contain functionally related genes, and therefore, can be used to identify connections within and between pathways and to better define functional relationships between genes and disease.