Patent ID: 7195880

Claim:
A method for the selection of a desired protein or its encoding DNA, said method comprising the steps of: a) producing a population of candidate DNA-protein fusions, wherein each of the candidate DNA-protein fusions is generated by a method selected from: i) (a) covalently bonding a nucleic acid reverse-transcription DNA primer to an RNA, said reverse-transcription primer being bound to a peptide acceptor; (b) translating in vitro said RNA to produce a protein product, said protein product being covalently bound to said reverse-transcription primer; and (c) reverse transcribing said RNA to produce a DNA-protein fusion; ii) (a) generating an RNA-protein fusion; (b) hybridizing a nucleic acid reverse-transcription primer to said fusion; (c) covalently bonding said primer to said fusion; and (d) reverse transcribing the RNA of said RNA-protein fusion to produce a DNA-protein fusion; and iii) (a) providing an RNA molecule covalently bonded to a peptide acceptor; (b) covalently bonding a nucleic acid reverse-transcription primer to the molecule of step (a); (c) translating said RNA molecule to produce a protein, and (d) reverse transcribing said RNA molecule to produce a DNA-protein fusion; and b) selecting a desired DNA-protein fusion that binds to a binding partner, thereby selecting a desired protein or DNA.