A widely applicable and cost-effective method for general and specific RNA-protein complex isolation

ABSTRACT Despite important methodological advances made in the past few years, a widely applicable, cost-effective and easily scalable procedure that can be routinely used to isolate ribonucleoprotein complexes (RNPs) remains elusive. We describe a versatile method that connects aspects of existing methods in a workflow optimized to reach the above goals and called it “Silica-based Acidic Phase Separation (SAPS)-capture”. To validate the method, the 18S rRNP of S. cerevisiae was captured. To illustrate its applicability, we isolated a repertoire of RNPs in A. thaliana . This procedure can provide the community with a powerful tool to advance the study of ribonomes and RNPs in any organism or tissue type.