Abstract
In this study, GFP mRNA in COS-7 cell and GFP-transfected COS-7 cell was detected in real time using phosphorothioate-modified molecular beacon based on living cell imaging method. Results showed that phosphorothioate-modified molecular beacon still kept the advantages of molecular beacon, such as, excellent selectivity, high sensitivity, and no separation detection. In addition, this modification could significantly increase the nuclease resistance of molecular beacon. Phosphorothioate-modified molecular beacon can efficiently reduce the false positive signal and improve the accuracy of living cell mRNA detection.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Zhu Y X, Li Y. Modern Molecular Biology, 2ed (in Chinese). Beijing: Higher Education Press, 2002. 64
Bratu D P, Cha B J, Mhlanga M M, et al. Visualizing the distribution and transport of mRNAs in living cells. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA, 2003, 100(23): 13308–13313
Santangelo P, Nitin N, Bao G. Nanostructured Probes for RNA Detection in Living Cells. Ann Biomed Eng, 2006, 34(1): 39–50
Saiki R K, Scharf S, Faloona F, et al. Enzymatic amplification of beta-globin genomic sequences and restriction site analysis for diagnosis of sickle cell anemia. Science, 1985, 230(4732): 1350–1354
Adams M D, Dubnick M, Kerlavage A R, et al. Sequence identification of 2375 human brain genes. Nature, 1992, 355(13): 632–634
Velculescu V E, Zhang L, Kinzler KW, et al. Serial analysis of gene expression. Science, 1995, 270(5235): 484–487
Schena M, Shalon D, Davis R W, et al. Quantitative monitoring of gene expression patterns with a complementary DNA microarray. Science, 1995, 270(5235): 467–470
El-Deiry W S, Tokino T, Velculescu V E, et al. WAF1, a potential mediator of p53 tumor suppression. Cell, 1993, 75(4): 817–825
Dulic V, Kaufmann W K, Wilson S J, et al. p53-dependent inhibition of cyclin-dependent kinase activities in human fibroblasts during radiation-induced G1 arrest. Cell, 1994, 76(6): 1013–1023
Bunz F, Dutriaux A, Lengauer C, et al. Requirement for p53 and p21 to sustain G2 arrest after DNA damage. Science, 1998, 282(5393): 1497–1501
Cook B N, Bertozzi, C R. Chemical approaches to the investigation of cellular systems. Bioorg Med Chem, 2002, 10(4): 829–840
Xie X S, Yu J, Yang W Y. Living cells as test tubes. Science, 2006, 312(5771): 228–230
Tyagi S, Kramer F R. Molecular beacons: probes that fluorecence upon hybridization. Nat Biotechnol, 1996, 14(2): 303–308
Tyagi S, Bratu D P, Kramer F R. Multicolor molecular beacons for allele discrimination. Nat Biotechnol, 1998, 16(1): 49–53
Tan W H, Wang K M, Drake T. Molecular beacons. Curr Opin Chem Biol, 2004, 8(5): 547–553
Li J J, Fang X H, Schuster S M, et al. Molecular beacons: a novel approach to detect protein—DNA interactions. Angew Chem Int Ed, 2000, 39(6): 1049–1052
Tang Z W, Wang K M, Tan W H, et al. Real time monitoring of nucleic acids ligation based on molecular beacon. Chinese Sci Bull, 2003, 48(12): 1215–1218
Marras S A, Tyagi S, Kramer F R. Real-time assays with molecular beacons and other fluorescent nucleic acid hybridization probes. Clin Chim Acta, 2006, 363(1–2): 48–60
Sokol D L, Zhang X L, Lu P, et al. Real time detection of DNA-RNA hybridization in living cell. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA, 1998, 95(20): 11538–11543
Vargas D Y, Raj A, Marras S A, et al. Mechanism of mRNA transport in the nucleus. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA, 2005, 102(47): 17008–17013
Tang H X, Yang X H, Wang K M, et al. Monitoring p21 mRNA expression in living cell based on molecular beacon fluorescence increasing rate. Chinese Sci Bull, 2008, 53(3): 357–361
Medley C D, Lin H, Mullins H, et al. Multiplexed detection of ions and mRNA expression in single living cells. Analyst, 2007, 132(9): 885–891
Santangelo P J, Nix B, Tsourkas A, et al. Dual FRET molecular beacons for mRNA detection in living cells. Nucleic Acids Res, 2004, 32(6): e57
Shah R, El-Deiry W S. p53-Dependent activation of a molecular beacon in tumor cells following exposure to doxorubicin chemotherapy. Cancer Biol Ther, 2004, 3(9):871–875
Mhlanga M M, Vargas D Y, Fung C W, et al. tRNA-linked molecular beacons for imaging mRNAs in the cytoplasm of living cells. Nucleic Acids Res, 2005, 33(6): 1902–1912
Wang L, Yang C Y J, Medley C D, et al. Locked nuclei acid molecular beacons. J Am Chem Soc, 2005, 127(45): 15664–15665
Yang C Y J, Wang L, Wu Y R, et al. Synthesis and investigation of deoxyribonucleic acid/locked nucleic acid chimeric molecular beacons. Nucleic Acids Res, 2007, 35(12): 4030–4041
Molenaar C, Marras S A, Slats J C M, et al. Linear 2′-O-Methyl RNA probes for the visualization of RNA in living cells. Nucleic Acids Res, 2001, 29(17): e89
Tsourkas A, Behlke M A, Bao G. Hybridization of 2′-O-methyl and 2’-deoxy molecular beacons to RNA and DNA targets. Nucleic Acids Res, 2002, 30(23): 5168–5174
Fang P, Jiang L P. The application of chemically modified nucleotides on antisense oligonucleotides and nucleic acid catalysts (in Chinese). J Med Mol Biol, 2004, 1(3): 161–164
Lee L K, Roth C M. Antisense technology in molecular and cellular bioengineering. Curr Opin Biotechnol, 2003, 14(5): 505–511
Zuker M. Mfold web server for nucleic acid folding and hybridization prediction. Nucleic Acids Res, 2003, 31(13): 3406–3415
Sambrook J, Russell D. Molecular Cloning: A Laboratory Manual. 3rd ed. Cold Spring Harbor: Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press, 2001
Bratu D P. Molecular beacons: fluorescent probes for detection of endogenous mRNAs in living cells. Methods Mol Biol, 2006, 319: 1–14
Marras S A, Kramer F R, Tyagi S. Genotyping SNPs with molecular beacons. Methods Mol Biol, 2003, 212: 111–128
Yang C Y J, Lin H, Tan W H. Molecular assembly of superquenchers in signaling molecular interactions. J Am Chem Soc, 2005, 127(37): 12772–12773
Tsuji A, Sato Y, Hirano M, et al. Development of a time-resolved fluorometric method for observing hybridization in living cells using fluorescence resonance energy transfer. Biophys J, 2001, 81(1): 501–515
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Additional information
Supported by the National Key Basic Research Program (Grant No. 2002CB513110), International Technologies Collaboration Program of China (Grant No. 2003DF000039), and National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant Nos. 90606003 and 20620120107)
About this article
Cite this article
Tang, H., Yang, X., Wang, K. et al. mRNA detection in living cell using phosphorothioate-modified molecular beacon. Chin. Sci. Bull. 54, 1507–1514 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11434-009-0107-5
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11434-009-0107-5