title: Stochasticity of manganese superoxide dismutase mRNA expression in breast carcinoma cells by molecular beacon imaging.
abstract: Visual and quantitative monitoring of cell-to-cell variation in the expression of manganese superoxide dismutase (MnSOD) mRNA by using novel ratiometric imaging with molecular beacons (MB) reveals a distinct change in patterns following induction of human breast-carcinoma cells with lipopolysaccharide. Interestingly, the pattern of cell-to-cell variation in a cell line stably transfected with a plasmid bearing a cDNA clone of MnSOD and overproducing the enzyme is significantly different from the pattern associated with MnSOD induction. The levels and the patterns of cell-population heterogeneity for beta-actin mRNA expression do not show distinct changes either following induction or in stably transfected cells. These results are significant in light of the reported relationship between this enzyme and malignant phenotype of breast-carcinoma cells. Use of MBs in ratiometric image analyses for cytoplasmic mRNAs represents a novel means of directly examining the stochasticity of transcription of MnSOD and other genes implicated in cellular phenotype regulation.
authors.affiliation: Center for Research at the Bio/Nano Interface, Department of Chemistry, Shands Cancer Center, UF Genetics Institute and McKnight Brain Institute, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL 32611, USA.
authors.forename: Timothy J
authors.initials: TJ
authors.lastname: Drake
authors.forename: Colin D
authors.initials: CD
authors.lastname: Medley
authors.forename: Arup
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Sen
authors.forename: Richard J
authors.initials: RJ
authors.lastname: Rogers
authors.forename: Weihong
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Tan
mesh_terms: D001483:Base Sequence; D001943:Breast Neoplasms / Q000378:metabolism* / Q000473:pathology; D002277:Carcinoma / Q000378:metabolism* / Q000473:pathology; D045744:Cell Line, Tumor; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008845:Microinjections; D008856:Microscopy, Fluorescence; D015336:Molecular Probe Techniques; D008969:Molecular Sequence Data; D012333:RNA, Messenger / Q000096:biosynthesis*; D013269:Stochastic Processes; D013482:Superoxide Dismutase / Q000235:genetics* / Q000378:metabolism*; D014158:Transcription, Genetic
chemical_list: D012333:RNA, Messenger; D013482:Superoxide Dismutase