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IMAGE: The researchers compared the BOLORAMIS method with single-molecule FISH (smFISH) analysis, a common standard for RNA localization studies, by tracing the location of a long non-coding RNA molecule known as. view more
Credit: Wyss Institute at Harvard University
(BOSTON) ¬ Human cells typically transcribe half of their roughly 20,000 genes into RNA molecules at any given time. Just like with proteins, the function of those RNA species not only relies on their abundance but also their precise localization within the 3D space of each cell. Many RNA molecules convey gene information from the cell s nucleus to the protein-synthesizing machinery distributed throughout the cytoplasm (messenger RNAs or mRNAs), others are components of that machinery itself, while still different ones regulate genes and their expression, or have functions that remain to be discovered. Importantly, many diseases including cancer and neurological diseases have signatures that app
Expansion Sequencing Creates Google Map of Mouse Brain Messages
Source: Shahar Alon, Daniel Goodwin, Ed Boyden
February 1, 2021
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“We now have a ‘Google map’ that allows measuring millions of RNA molecules within the tissue with nanoscale precision, without having to extract them as we did previously,” says Shahar Alon, PhD, of Bar-Ilan University’s Faculty of Engineering, Multidisciplinary Brain Research Center and Institute of Nanotechnology and Advanced Materials. The new technology, Expansion Sequencing or ExSeq, is a significant step forward in efforts to treat complex diseases, such as Alzheimer’s and cancer.
Science, researchers from Bar-Ilan University, Harvard University, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) reveal that they have succeeded in developing a technology that allows them, for the first time, to pinpoint millions of RNA molecules inside tissues with nanoscale resolution.
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Over the last decade the field of genomics, which enables the extraction and in-depth study of RNA molecules from any tissue, has transformed biology and medicine. Molecules derived from a tissue of a healthy individual, for example, can be compared to molecules of a diseased individual, potentially revealing the cause of disease.
Until now this powerful approach has been limited to studying molecules outside the tissue. But for the proper function of tissues, it is important to identify the location of RNA molecules inside them. In a paper published today in the journal
Science, researchers from Bar-Ilan University, Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) reveal that they have succeeded in developing a technology that allows them, for the first time, to pinpoint millions of RNA molecules mapped inside tissues with nanoscale resolution.
Illustration of a human brain (apagafonova via iStock by Getty Images)
An Israeli-led research team says it has created an unprecedented “molecular Google Map” of a brain’s memory center, in a first application of technology that may help in the fight against Alzheimer’s and other diseases.
The breakthrough allows researchers to zoom in on RNA (ribonucleic acid) at nanoscale resolution without having to destroy the tissue to remove the RNA for analysis, giving a view of brain tissue that was hitherto out of doctors’ reach.
The ability to sequence RNA, a building block of life that uses the information from DNA to create proteins, has transformed biology and medicine. But when trying to analyze RNA from brain tissue that had been destroyed, doctors could only get a much less detailed view like a list of cities instead of a map creating a major barrier to research into diseases that affect brain function.
Credits: Courtesy of the researchers
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Using a novel technique for expanding tissue, MIT and Harvard Medical School researchers have devised a way to label individual molecules of messenger RNA within a tissue sample and then sequence the RNA.
This approach offers a unique snapshot of which genes are being expressed in different parts of a cell, and could allow scientists to learn much more about how gene expression is influenced by a cell’s location or its interactions with nearby cells. The technique could also be useful for mapping cells in the brain or other tissues and classifying them according to their function.