Promoter bashing is a technique used in molecular biology

Molecular biology

Molecular biology is the branch of biology that deals with the molecular basis of biological activity. This field overlaps with other areas of biology and chemistry, particularly genetics and biochemistry...

 to identify the importance of a specific promoter for the proper expression of the gene

Gene

A gene is a molecular unit of heredity of a living organism. It is a name given to some stretches of DNA and RNA that code for a type of protein or for an RNA chain that has a function in the organism. Living beings depend on genes, as they specify all proteins and functional RNA chains...

. Specific point mutations are made and the transcription

Transcription (genetics)

Transcription is the process of creating a complementary RNA copy of a sequence of DNA. Both RNA and DNA are nucleic acids, which use base pairs of nucleotides as a complementary language that can be converted back and forth from DNA to RNA by the action of the correct enzymes...

of the gene is then measured. The importance of a promoter can be observed by the level of transcription.

1. Clone the region of DNA thought to act as a promoter

2. Sequence the region

3. Digest with appropriate restriction enzymes

4. Ligate to reporter gene so that the reporter can be transcribed in the cells of interest

5. Transform cells of interest with the various promoter:reporter constructs

6. Measure reporter-gene transcription rates by assaying the reporter gene product