Caenorhabditis elegans mRBPome

This project aims to identify novel RNA binding proteins in the nematode, Caenorhabditis elegans. Since interactions between RNAs and proteins may be transient, these animals were crosslinked with UV light at 254 nm which promotes the covalent link between proteins and RNAs. After this, polyadenylated mRNAs were purified via oligo(dT) coupled to magentic beads under stringent conditions. Finally, samples were subjected to mass spectrometry analysis. To rule out the possibility of RNA-independent binding we also analysed other samples: i) samples digested with RNase one; ii) samples where we performed competition assays with polyadenylic acid