Polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis bandshift assays of RNA–RNA complex formation. The electrophoresis buffer was 100 mM Tris–HEPES, pH 7.8, containing 100 mM NaCl, 10 mM MgCl2 and 0.1 mM EDTA. The concentration series for the two figures are different due to the higher affinity of the TAR16s2U hairpin for its complement. (A) The complex between TAR*16 and TAR16s2U at 4°C. Each lane contains 0.5 nM 32P-labeled TAR*16 except lane 1, which contains 0.5 nM 32P-labeled TAR16s2U only. The concentrations of unlabeled TAR16s2U in lanes 2–9 are 0.0, 0.001, 0.005, 0.01, 0.05, 0.1, 0.5 and 1.0 µM. (B) The complex between TAR*16 and unmodified TAR16 at 4°C. Each lane contains 0.5 nM 32P-labeled TAR*16 except lane 2, which contains 0.5 nM 32P-labeled TAR16 only. The concentrations of unlabeled TAR16 in lanes 3–9 are 0.001, 0.01, 0.05, 0.1, 0.5, 1.0 and 5.0 µM.