UC San Diego

R-loops, DNA/RNA hybrids synthesized during transcription, have been causally associated with genome instability. Their dysregulation has been linked to the onset of myriad pathologies, most notably tumorigenesis. Though methodologies for R-loop isolation and quantification have been developed, it was not until recently that R-loops could be extracted reliably in vivo. With the newly developed R-ChIP technique, it is possible to isolate R-loop-protein complexes from K562 cells with high efficiency, which, when coupled with mass spectroscopy and deep sequencing, can provide details on R-loop-protein interactions at specific genomic loci. Further study can compare the results of our DNA/RNA hybrid interactome to that of DNA/RNA hybrid interactomes characterized by older S9.6-based methodologies. These newly identified interactions may shed important light on the mechanisms by which R-loops induce disease.