Question

You wanted to study the assembly of preinitiation complex in eukaryotes. This is by the means of protein-protein interaction. Which of these methods you can’t absolutely put in use there?

(a) Footprinting

(b) Crystal structure

(c) EMSA

(d) Primer extension

The question was posed to me in an interview for internship.

The doubt is from Transcription in Eukaryotes : Transcription Factors in division Gene Expression : Transcription Prokaryotes of Cytogenetics

Answer 1

Correct choice is (d) Primer extension

The explanation is: While primer extension method can be used to locate the 5’ end of the RNA this doesn’t do any help in studying the assembly of pre initiation complex- basically as that’s upstream to even transcription start site. The remaining methods are however very useful.