RNA Binding Proteins & RNA Biology

Transcription explains only part of what the parasite does. Between a gene switching on and a protein appearing, transcripts are bound, stabilised, moved and silenced — and in these parasites that layer carries an unusual share of the regulation, holding messages made at one stage in reserve until the next.

We map it from two directions. Proteome-wide screens identify which proteins bind RNA at all, including a family of RAP proteins with roles in the apicoplast and the mitoribosome; eCLIP-seq and ChIRP-seq then pin individual proteins and long non-coding RNAs to the transcripts and genomic sites they occupy. The lncRNA catalogue that came out of that work is now being tested for function rather than presence.