Herein, we describe the design of high affinity ligands that bind expanded rCUG-and rCAG-repeat RNAs expressed in myotonic dystrophy and spinocerebellar ataxia. These ligands also inhibit, with nanomolar IC 50 's, the formation of RNA-protein complexes that are implicated in both disorders. The expanded rCUG and rCAG repeats form stable RNA hairpins with regularly repeating internal loops in the stem and have deleterious effects on cell function. The ligands that bind the repeats display a derivative of the bis-benzimidazole Hoechst 33258, which was identified by searching known RNA-ligand interactions. A series of 13 modularly assembled ligands with defined valencies and distances between ligand modules was synthesized to target multiple motifs in these RNAs simultaneously. The most avid binder, a pentamer, binds the rCUG-repeat hairpin with a K d of 13 nM. As compared to a series of related RNAs, the pentamer binds to rCUG-repeats with 4.4-to >200-fold specificity. Furthermore, the affinity of binding to rCUG-repeats shows incremental gains with increasing valency while the background binding to genomic DNA is correspondingly reduced. Then, it was determined whether the multivalent ligands inhibit the recognition of RNA repeats by Muscleblind-like 1 (MBNL1) protein, the expanded-rCUG binding protein whose sequestration leads to splicing defects in DM1. Among several compounds with nanomolar IC 50 's, the most potent inhibitor is the pentamer, which also inhibits the formation of rCAG repeat-MBNL1 complexes.Comparison of the binding data of the designed synthetic ligands and MBNL1 to repeating RNAs shows that the synthetic ligand is 23-fold higher affinity and more specific to DM1 RNAs than MBNL1. Further studies show that the designed ligands are cell permeable to mouse myoblasts. Thus, cell permeable ligands that bind repetitive RNAs have been designed that exhibit higher affinity and specificity for binding RNA than natural proteins. These studies suggest a general approach to targeting RNA, including those that cause RNA dominant disease.

The interactions between pairs of cells and within multicellular assemblies are critical to many biological processes such as intercellular communication, tissue and organ formation, immunological reactions, and cancer metastasis. The ability to precisely control the position of cells relative to one another and within larger cellular assemblies will enable the investigation and characterization of phenomena not currently accessible by conventional in vitro methods. We present a versatile surface acoustic wave technique that is capable of controlling the intercellular distance and spatial arrangement of cells with micrometer level resolution. This technique is, to our knowledge, among the first of its kind to marry high precision and high throughput into a single extremely versatile and wholly biocompatible technology. We demonstrated the capabilities of the system to precisely control intercellular distance, assemble cells with defined geometries, maintain cellular assemblies in suspension, and translate these suspended assemblies to adherent states, all in a contactless, biocompatible manner. As an example of the power of this system, this technology was used to quantitatively investigate the gap junctional intercellular communication in several homotypic and heterotypic populations by visualizing the transfer of fluorescent dye between cells.cell-cell interaction | intercellular communication | surface acoustic waves | acoustic tweezers | acoustofluidics M ulticellular systems rely on the interaction between cells to coordinate cell signaling and regulate cell functions. Understanding the mechanism and process of cell-cell interaction is critical to many physiological and pathological processes, such as embryogenesis, differentiation, cancer metastasis, immunological interactions, and diabetes (1-3). Despite significant advances in this field, to further understand how cells interact and communicate with each other, a robust, biocompatible method to precisely control the spatial and temporal association of cells and to create defined cellular assemblies is urgently needed (4). Although several methods have been used to pattern cells, limitations still exist for the demonstrated methods including those that make use of optical, electrical, magnetic, hydrodynamic, and contact printing technologies (5-9). Firstly, most of the methods require modification of the cell's native state. The magnetic assembly method, for example, requires cells to be labeled with magnetic probes. Dielectrophoresis typically requires the use of a special medium (e.g., nonconductive) which may lack essential nutrients or have biophysical properties (such as the osmolality) that may adversely affect cell growth or physiology (6). Optical tweezers provide a label-free and contactless approach, but typically require high laser power to manipulate cells, leading to a high risk of cell damage (5). Secondly, the working principles of the existing technologies mostly preclude the combination of high precision and high throughput into a single ...

Purine biosynthetic enzymes organize into dynamic cellular bodies called purinosomes. Little is known about the spatiotemporal control of these structures. Using super-resolution microscopy, we demonstrated that purinosomes colocalized with mitochondria, and these results were supported by isolation of purinosome enzymes with mitochondria. Moreover, the number of purinosome containing cells responded to dysregulation of mitochondrial function and metabolism. To explore the role of intracellular signaling, we performed a kinome screen using a label-free assay and identified that mTOR influenced purinosome assembly. mTOR inhibition disrupted purinosome-mitochondria colocalization and suppressed purinosome formation stimulated by mitochondria dysregulation. Collectively, our data suggests an mTOR-mediated link between purinosomes and mitochondria and suggests a general means by which mTOR regulates nucleotide metabolism by spatiotemporal control over protein association.