In the broad area of functional genomics, that is the global characterization of proteins and their function, cell-free rabbit reticulocyte lysate (RRL) has been used extensively to elucidate the mechanisms of mammalian translation, cotranslational modifications, post-translational modifications and translocation of proteins. More recently, RRL has been used as the workhorse for manufacturing the proteins engaged in interaction, selection and protein evolution studies from DNA or mRNA libraries either in microarray, display or in vitro expression cloning (IVEC) technologies. This chapter highlights recent functional proteomics applications that use cell-free mammalian RRL.
Michele Arduengo, Elaine Schenborn and Robin Hurst