CNA

In a paper published in Nature Communications, Husbands and the team focused on two near-identical paralogs, PHB and CNA, to uncover the mechanism behind this divergence.

The researchers initially explored the functional divergence between the CNA and PHB by performing qPCR, a quantitative technique used to measure the abundance of RNA molecules and, by extension, gene-expression levels.

Initially, they focused on examining two genomic targets they expected CNA and PHB to regulate based on the team's previous research and assumptions about TFs based on other literature.

To address this paradox, they turned to ChIP-seq to systematically map all the binding sites of CNA and PHB across the genome, thus allowing the researchers to see the broader landscape of where TFs were binding.

This combination of techniques enabled the team to determine not just where CNA and PHB were binding but also which genes were being activated or repressed as a result.