Review of Methods to Study Gene Expression Regulation Applied to Asthma

Gene expression regulation is the cellular process that controls, increasing or decreasing, the expression of gene products (RNA or protein). A complex set of interactions between genes, RNA molecules, protein, and other components determined when and where specific genes are activated and the amount of protein or RNA produced. Here, we focus on several methods to study gene regulation applied to asthma and allergic research such as: Western Blot to identify and quantify proteins, electrophoretic mobility shift assay (EMSA) and chromatin immunoprecipitation (ChIP) to study protein interactions with nucleic acids, and RNA interference (RNAi) by which gene expression could be silenced.