Brightness Enhanced DNA FIT-Probes for Wash-Free RNA Imaging in Tissue

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• 作者：Felix H枚velmann ; Imre Gaspar ; Anne Ephrussi ; Oliver Seitz
• 刊名：Journal of the American Chemical Society
• 出版年：2013
• 出版时间：December 18, 2013
• 年：2013
• 卷：135
• 期：50
• 页码：19025-19032
• 全文大小：457K
• 年卷期：v.135,no.50(December 18, 2013)
• ISSN：1520-5126

文摘

Fluorogenic oligonucleotides enable RNA imaging in cells and tissues. A high responsiveness of fluorescence is required when unbound probes cannot be washed away. Furthermore, emission should be bright in order to enable detection against autofluorescent background. The development of fluorescence-quenched hybridization probes has led to remarkable improvement of fluorescence responsiveness. Yet, comparably little attention has been paid to the brightness of smart probes. We describe hybridization probes that combine responsiveness with a high brightness of the measured signal. The method relies upon quencher-free DNA forced intercalation (FIT)-probes, in which two (or more) intercalator dyes of the thiazole orange (TO) family serve as nucleobase surrogates. Initial experiments on multi-TO-labeled probes led to improvements of responsiveness, but self-quenching limited their brightness. To enhance both brightness and responsiveness the highly responsive TO nucleoside was combined with the highly emissive oxazolopyridine analogue JO. Single-stranded TO/JO FIT-probes are dark. In the probe鈥搕arget duplex, quenching caused by torsional twisting and dye鈥揹ye contact is prevented. The TO nucleoside appears to serve as a light collector that increases the extinction coefficient and transfers excitation energy to the JO emitter. This leads to very bright JO emission upon hybridization (F/F₀ = 23, brightness = 43 mL mol^鈥? cm^鈥? at 位_ex = 516 nm). TO/JO FIT-probes allowed the direct fluorescence microscopic imaging of oskar mRNA within a complex tissue. Of note, RNA imaging was feasible under wide-field excitation conditions. The described protocol enables rapid RNA imaging in tissue without the need for cutting-edge equipment, time-consuming washing, or signal amplification.