Enhanced Single RNA Imaging Reveals Dynamic Gene Expression in Live Animals

Abstract

Imaging endogenous mRNAs in live animals is technically challenging. Here we describe an MS2 based signal Amplification with Suntag System that enables live-cell RNA imaging of high temporal resolution and with 8xMS2 stem-loops, which overcomes the obstacle of inserting a 1,300 nt 24xMS2 into the genome for the imaging of endogenous mRNAs. Using this tool we were able to image the activation of gene expression and the dynamics of endogenous mRNAs in the epidermis of live C. elegans.

Exploring tools for studying asymmetric cell division in the zebrafish developing telencephalon

“…1). Initially characterised in yeasts, the MS2 system was then employed to investigate transcriptional activity in other model organisms including Drosophila (Ceolin et al, 2020;Garcia et al, 2013), C. elegans (Hu, 2022), mammalian cell lines (Lionnet et al, 2011;Wells et al, 2007) and mouse brain tissue slices (Moon & Park, 2016). However, in zebrafish the The MS2 method was mainly used to study mRNA transport and distribution in the cytoplasm of endothelial cells upon blood vessel sprouting (Costa et al, 2018), and in maternal-to-zygotic transition (Sun et al, 2018), while usage of MS2 to monitor transcription activation was only described in maternal-to-zygotic transition in the early embryo .…”