Diazirine-containing RNA photocrosslinking probes for the study of siRNA-protein interactions

DNA probes are fragments of DNA labeled with a reporter tag to enable their detection or purification. The resulting labeled DNA probes can then hybridize to target nucleic acid sequences through complementary base-pairing, and may be used to recover or identify these regions.
Radioisotopes, fluorophores, or small molecule binding partners like biotin or digoxigenin, are the most widely used reporter tags for labeling DNA probes. These labels can be attached to the probe DNA molecule via...

Small interfering RNAs, or siRNAs, are short regulatory RNA molecules that can silence genes post-transcriptionally, as well as the transcriptional level in some cases. siRNAs are important for protecting cells against viral infections and silencing transposable genetic elements.
In the cytoplasm, siRNA is processed from a double-stranded RNA, which comes from either endogenous DNA transcription or exogenous sources like a virus. This double-stranded RNA is then cleaved by the ATP-dependent...

RNA interference (RNAi) is a process in which a small non-coding RNA molecule blocks the post-transcriptional expression of a gene by binding to its messenger RNA (mRNA) and preventing the protein from being translated.
This process occurs naturally in cells, often through the activity of genomically-encoded microRNAs. Researchers can take advantage of this mechanism by introducing synthetic RNAs to deactivate specific genes for research or therapeutic purposes. For example, RNAi could be used...