The citations (titles and/or abstracts) obtained from the searches were read to determine the relevance of the articles. Based on the reading, the relevance of the citation was determined and the citations were categorized as follows:

• Definitely relevant hits: Citations which were obviously relevant to the query. For example, when the query terms or equivalent terms occurred in the title/abstract, in context of the objective of the search.
• Most probably relevant hits: Citations that seemed relevant but a confident decision could not be made by reading the title/abstract. For example, cases where most, but not all, of the query terms or their equivalents were present in the title/abstract.
• May be relevant: Citations that caused ambiguity in deciding the relevance either due to absence of the abstract or due to the lack of statement in title/abstract that can either confirm the relevance or rule out its possibility.
• Most probably irrelevant hits: Citations where there was an indication that the study was not related, but this could not be confirmed.
• Definitely irrelevant hits: Citations that could be determined with confidence as irrelevant to the topic of search.

 When the abstract contained statements that directly indicated the involvement of RNA binding proteins (RBPs) in transcription initiation, it was considered ‘definitely relevant’. An abstract with a clear mention of RBPs and ‘transcription initiation’ but without any indicative reference to the action of RBP in transcription initiation was considered as ‘most probably relevant’. The abstracts without clear information on either RBPs or ‘transcription initiation’, and also fails to reveal the existence of link between the two aspects, were identified as ‘may be relevant’. Abstracts with statements that just mention RBPs or ‘transcription initiation’, with enough indication that the article may not discuss RBPs in the context of transcription initiation, were considered as ‘most probably irrelevant’. Finally, those without the terms RBP or transcription initiation and showing no statement linking the two aspects even in any way were considered definitely irrelevant.

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