InteRNAct

Recent years saw an explosion in the discovery of non-coding RNAs (ncRNAs) in all kingdoms of life and also their involvement in fundamental processes within the cell. Even more, it turned out that the majority of the transcriptional output is ncRNA. Functional characterization of ncRNAs can be carried out by classic genetic studies, such as gene knock-out or overexpression, which is laborious and cannot keep pace with the discovery rate of new elements. We develop an integrated method for RNA-RNA interaction detection by combining experimental high-throughput techniques and sophisticated algorithms for data analysis and interpretation. Fundamental to this approach will be to capture the RNA-RNA interactions in-vivo. The resulting high-throughput method for RNA-RNA interaction detection will help to investigate RNA-based regulation to an unprecedented degree. It will allow to study the short- and long-term dynamics of RNA based regulation, in response to environmental stimuli or on the evolutionary scale.