Chromatin immunoprecipitation of replication factors moving with the replication fork.

Replication of chromosomes involves a variety of replication proteins including DNA polymerases, DNA helicases, and other accessory factors. Many of these proteins are known to localize at replication forks and travel with them as components of the replisome complex. Other proteins do not move with replication forks but still play an essential role in DNA replication. Therefore, in order to understand the mechanisms of DNA replication and its controls, it is important to examine localization of each replication factor. Here we describe a chromatin immunoprecipitation (ChIP) method to locate a replication factor at the replication fork. Defining the localization of replication proteins should provide important insight into mechanistic understanding of the regulation of the DNA replication process.