2: RNA Engineering (Module 1)

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Instructors: Jacquin Niles and Agi Stachowiak

In this module you will investigate RNA aptamer selection. You may already be familiar with peptides or proteins, such as antibodies, that bind to specific molecules. Short fragments of RNA – called RNA aptamers - can have secondary structures that also allow them to bind a target molecule with good affinity and specificity. Normally, RNA aptamers that bind particular targets are found by screening many candidates at random in a process called SELEX, or systematic evolution of ligands by exponential enrichment; however, predictive computational tools can also be used. In the coming weeks, you will essentially perform one round of SELEX. Because SELEX typically takes several rounds to isolate target-binding aptamers, you will start with a known aptamer mixture rather than than a completely random library. Your goal will be to explore what experimental parameters affect the enrichment of a heme-binding RNA aptamer from a mixture of heme-binding and non-binding RNAs.

Acknowledgement: We thank 20.109 instructor Natalie Kuldell for helpful discussions and for acquiring funding for module development.

Figure \(\PageIndex{1}\): Public domain image. (Prepared using RNA Folding (mfold) at the mFold Web Server). Reference: Zuker, M. "Mfold Web Server for Nucleic Acid Folding and Hybridization Prediction." *Nucleic Acids Res.* 31, no. 13 (2003): 3406-3415.