Engineering Molecular Beacons for Intracellular Imaging

Molecular beacons (MBs) represent a class of nucleic acid probes with unique DNA hairpin structures that specifically target complementary DNA or RNA. The inherent “OFF” to “ON” signal transduction mechanism of MBs makes them promising molecular probes for real-time imaging of DNA/RNA in living cell...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published inInternational Journal of Molecular Imaging Vol. 2012; no. 2012; pp. 136 - 145
Main Authors Wu, Cuichen Sam, Peng, Lu, You, Mingxu, Han, Da, Chen, Tao, Williams, Kathryn R., Yang, Chaoyong James, Tan, Weihong
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Cairo, Egypt Hindawi Limiteds 01.01.2012
Hindawi Puplishing Corporation
Hindawi Publishing Corporation
Hindawi Limited
Subjects
Aqueous solutions
Deoxyribonucleic acid
DNA
Efficiency
Fluorescence
Gene expression
Molecular weight
Polymers
Proteins
Review
Signal transduction
Target recognition
Online AccessGet full text

Cover

More Information
Summary:Molecular beacons (MBs) represent a class of nucleic acid probes with unique DNA hairpin structures that specifically target complementary DNA or RNA. The inherent “OFF” to “ON” signal transduction mechanism of MBs makes them promising molecular probes for real-time imaging of DNA/RNA in living cells. However, conventional MBs have been challenged with such issues as false-positive signals and poor biostability in complex cellular matrices. This paper describes the novel engineering steps used to improve the fluorescence signal and reduce to background fluorescence, as well as the incorporation of unnatural nucleotide bases to increase the resistance of MBs to nuclease degradation for application in such fields as chemical analysis, biotechnology, and clinical medicine. The applications of these de novo MBs for single-cell imaging will be also discussed.
Bibliography:ObjectType-Article-1
SourceType-Scholarly Journals-1
ObjectType-Feature-2
content type line 23
Academic Editor: Xiaoyuan Chen
ISSN:2090-1712
2090-1720
DOI:10.1155/2012/501579