LIGAND-BINDING ASSAYS IN THE RESEARCH LABORATORY

The use of recombinant DNA technology in conjunction with traditional immunologic assays has made possible the significant advances that have occurred in the last decade in our understanding of cellular mechanisms at the molecular level. Many strategies of investigating the cellular mechanisms related to health and disease center around the identification, characterization, and regulation of the expression of proteins. Ligand assays, both antibody- and DNA/RNA hybridization-based, are powerful yet flexible tools used to pursue five basic lines of investigation: 1) in vivo structure-function analysis at the cell or organism level; 2) isolation and sequence determination of the appropriate gene, with subsequent expression of the gene either in vitro or in vivo; 3) manipulation of the protein's gene sequence and production of variants for functional analysis; 4) localization of the expression of a particular gene within cells and tissues by in situ hybridization; and 5) elucidation of the regulatory points of the protein's expression.