Translational research methods: Basics of renal molecular biology

Molecular biology has developed between years 1940s and 1960s as a branch of science that spans from genetics to cell biology and biochemistry with the goal of understanding the interactions by which DNA, RNA, and protein synthesis operate into cells [1]. Since then, numerous technological innovations pushed the field forward, allowing recombinant DNA technology to be applied to a wide variety of biologic problems and to enter the clinical practice. The discovery of restriction nucleases and DNA ligases, development of DNA libraries, DNA cloning procedures, nucleic acid hybridization techniques, and the polymerase chain reaction (PCR) together with transgenic animals have all represented successive steps for a successful delineation of the role of genes in cellular physiology and pathophysiology. This molecular revolution has affected all of the sciences, including medical and clinical research, and has culminated in the completion of the human genome project [2, 3]. In the past 15 years, we have witnessed tremendous technological advances for high-throughput analysis of DNA, RNA, and protein in a comprehensive and cost-effective manner, with great promises to translate the analysis of the central dogma of biology into precision diagnosis and treatment for both rare and common diseases (Fig. 1). The recent advances in RNA biology identified numerous noncoding functional regions of the genome, which “escape” the central dogma but that can be analyzed and studied using a similar framework.