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Combining genetic and biochemical approaches to identify functional molecular contact points

Biological Procedures Online volume 8, pages 77–86 (2006)Cite this article

Abstract

Protein-protein interactions are required for many viral and cellular functions and are potential targets for novel therapies. Here we detail a series of genetic and biochemical techniques used in combination to find an essential molecular contact point on the duck hepatitis B virus polymerase. These techniques include differential immunoprecipitation, mutagenesis and peptide competition. The strength of these techniques is their ability to identify contact points on intact proteins or protein complexes employing functional assays. This approach can be used to aid identification of putative binding sites on proteins and protein complexes which are resistant to characterization by other methods.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Molecular Microbiology and Immunology and Saint Louis University Liver Center, Saint Louis University School of Medicine, 63104, St. Louis, MO, USA

    John E. Tavis

  2. Department of Molecular Microbiology and Immunology, Saint Louis University School of Medicine, 1402 S. Grand Blvd., 63104, St. Louis, MO, USA

    Matthew P. Badtke & Feng Cao

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  1. Matthew P. Badtke
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  2. Feng Cao
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  3. John E. Tavis
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Correspondence to John E. Tavis.

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Open Access This article is published under license to BioMed Central Ltd. This is an Open Access article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License ( https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0 ), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

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Badtke, M.P., Cao, F. & Tavis, J.E. Combining genetic and biochemical approaches to identify functional molecular contact points. Biol. Proced. Online 8, 77–86 (2006). https://doi.org/10.1251/bpo121

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1251/bpo121

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Biological Procedures Online

ISSN: 1480-9222

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