Steitz and Lerner used immunoprecipitation with human antibodies from patients with autoimmunity to isolate and identify the novel entities snRNPs (pronounced "snurps") and detect their role in splicing. A snRNP is a specific short length of RNA, around 150 nucleotides long, associated with protein, that is involved in splicing introns out of newly transcribed RNA (pre-mRNA), a component of the spliceosomes. Steitz's paper "set the field ahead by light years and heralded the avalanche of small RNAs that have since been discovered to play a role in multiple steps in RNA biosynthesis," noted Susan Berget. Order of authorship in the original publication: Streitz, Wolin...Lerner.