Abstract
The ability to detect miRNA expression in live cells would leave these cells available for further manipulation or culture. Here, we describe the design of a miRNA sensor oligonucleotide whose sequence mimics the target mRNA. The sensor has a fluorescent label on one end of the oligo and a quencher on the other. When inside the cell, the sensor is recognized by its cognate miRNA-RISC and gets cleaved, setting the fluorophore free from its quencher. This results in fluorescence “turn on.” Since cleavage by the RISC complex is an enzymatic process, the described approach has a very high level of sensitivity (nM). The rate of nonspecific cleavage of the sensor is very slow permitting the collection of meaningful signal over a long period of time.
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Acknowledgements
This work was supported by grants NCIR00CA129070, NCI- 1R01CA163461-01A1 by the NIH and the Young Investigator Award by the Breast Cancer Alliance to Z.M.
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Kavishwar, A., Medarova, Z. (2016). Sensing miRNA: Signal Amplification by Cognate RISC for Intracellular Detection of miRNA in Live Cells. In: Medarova, Z. (eds) RNA Imaging. Methods in Molecular Biology, vol 1372. Humana Press, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4939-3148-4_10
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4939-3148-4_10
Publisher Name: Humana Press, New York, NY
Print ISBN: 978-1-4939-3147-7
Online ISBN: 978-1-4939-3148-4
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