title: Autonomous assembly of ordered metastable DNA nanoarchitecture and in situ visualizing of intracellular microRNAs.
abstract: Facile assembly of intelligent DNA nanoobjects with the ability to exert in situ visualization of intracellular microRNAs (miRNAs) has long been concerned in the fields of DNA nanotechnology and basic medical study. Here, we present a driving primer (DP)-triggered polymerization-mediated metastable assembly (PMA) strategy to prepare a well-ordered metastable DNA nanoarchitecture composed of only two hairpin probes (HAPs), which has never been explored by assembly methods. Its structural features and functions are characterized by atomic force microscope (AFM) and gel electrophoresis. Even if with a metastable molecular structure, this nanoarchitecture is relatively stable at physiological temperature. The assembly strategy can be expanded to execute microRNA-21 (miRNA-21) in situ imaging inside cancer cells by labelling one of the HAPs with fluorophore and quencher. Compared with the conventional fluorescence probe-based in situ hybridization (FISH) technique, confocal images revealed that the proposed DNA nanoassembly can not only achieve greatly enhanced imaging effect within cancer cells, but also reflect the miRNA-21 expression level sensitively. We believe that the easily constructed DNA nanoarchitecture and in situ profiling strategy are significant progresses in DNA assembly and molecule imaging in cells.
authors.affiliation: Cancer Metastasis Alert and Prevention Center, Pharmaceutical Photocatalysis of State Key Laboratory of Photocatalysis on Energy and Environment, College of Chemistry, Fujian Provincial Key Laboratory of Cancer Metastasis Chemoprevention and Chemotherapy, Fuzhou University, Fuzhou 350116, China.
authors.forename: Jianguo
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Xu
authors.affiliation: Cancer Metastasis Alert and Prevention Center, Pharmaceutical Photocatalysis of State Key Laboratory of Photocatalysis on Energy and Environment, College of Chemistry, Fujian Provincial Key Laboratory of Cancer Metastasis Chemoprevention and Chemotherapy, Fuzhou University, Fuzhou 350116, China. Electronic address: wuzaisheng@163.com.
authors.forename: Zai-Sheng
authors.initials: ZS
authors.lastname: Wu
authors.affiliation: Cancer Metastasis Alert and Prevention Center, Pharmaceutical Photocatalysis of State Key Laboratory of Photocatalysis on Energy and Environment, College of Chemistry, Fujian Provincial Key Laboratory of Cancer Metastasis Chemoprevention and Chemotherapy, Fuzhou University, Fuzhou 350116, China.
authors.forename: Zhenmeng
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.affiliation: Cancer Metastasis Alert and Prevention Center, Pharmaceutical Photocatalysis of State Key Laboratory of Photocatalysis on Energy and Environment, College of Chemistry, Fujian Provincial Key Laboratory of Cancer Metastasis Chemoprevention and Chemotherapy, Fuzhou University, Fuzhou 350116, China.
authors.forename: Jingqing
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Le
authors.affiliation: Cancer Metastasis Alert and Prevention Center, Pharmaceutical Photocatalysis of State Key Laboratory of Photocatalysis on Energy and Environment, College of Chemistry, Fujian Provincial Key Laboratory of Cancer Metastasis Chemoprevention and Chemotherapy, Fuzhou University, Fuzhou 350116, China.
authors.forename: Tingting
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Zheng
authors.affiliation: Cancer Metastasis Alert and Prevention Center, Pharmaceutical Photocatalysis of State Key Laboratory of Photocatalysis on Energy and Environment, College of Chemistry, Fujian Provincial Key Laboratory of Cancer Metastasis Chemoprevention and Chemotherapy, Fuzhou University, Fuzhou 350116, China. Electronic address: pharmlink@gmail.com.
authors.forename: Lee
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Jia
mesh_terms: D003460:Crystallization / Q000379:methods; D004247:DNA / Q000737:chemistry / Q000648:ultrastructure*; D005456:Fluorescent Dyes; D006801:Humans; D061986:MCF-7 Cells; D035683:MicroRNAs / Q000737:chemistry* / Q000648:ultrastructure*; D008856:Microscopy, Fluorescence / Q000379:methods*; D057054:Molecular Imaging / Q000379:methods*; D053758:Nanoparticles / Q000737:chemistry / Q000648:ultrastructure*; D009374:Neoplasms, Experimental / Q000737:chemistry / Q000648:ultrastructure*; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D012680:Sensitivity and Specificity
chemical_list: D005456:Fluorescent Dyes; C524940:MIRN21 microRNA, human; D035683:MicroRNAs; D004247:DNA
keywords: DNA assembly; Metastable DNA nanoarchitecture; Polymerization-mediated metastable assembly (PMA); miRNA-21