Proteomics and Molecular Biology
TP ProMol supports the research foci of the Institute of Anatomy with numerous modern methods for the analysis of molecular signal cascades. This includes both sample preparation for current multi-omics methods (for the purpose of mass spectrometric protein analysis, RNA or ATAC sequencing) and the analysis of proteins and genes. Proteins, DNA and RNA are mainly extracted from human and murine tissues, but also exotic specimens such as the axolotl are used.
One of TP ProMol's main areas of expertise is the production and purification of recombinant proteins using ÄKTA pure™ chromatography systems. This enables the purification of proteins for follow-up studies in vivo and in vitro. In addition, a variety of established methods allow quantitative and qualitative characterization of individual proteins or gene products, enabling the identification of novel therapeutic targets. These include coimmunoprecipitation, SDS gel electrophoresis and Western blot for the analysis of proteins but also quantitative reverse transcriptase polymerase chain reaction (qRT-PCR) or TaqMan for the quantification of RNA strands and micro RNAs.
Another field of expertise of TP ProMol is the cloning of vectors for the molecular analysis of signal transduction cascades. For this purpose, our platform is specialized in Gateway cloning and can draw on a pool of thousands of vectors that allow the expression of proteins in simple systems such as bacteria, mammalian cells or insect cells but also in complex organisms such as zebrafish. The target organisms are transfected by simple plasmids or infected by viral vectors (such as adeno-, adeno-associated (AAV), retro- or lentiviruses). Of course, classical cloning methods are also used.