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 the 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.

Data availability

Videos 1-11 contain source data for Figures.Figure 1-Source data 1 contains source data for statistical analysis in cells.Figure 2-Source data 1 contains source data for statistical analysis in C. elegans.

Article and author information

Author details

  1. Yucen Hu

    Zhejiang Provincial Key Laboratory of Cancer Molecular Cell Biology, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, China
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
  2. Jingxiu Xu

    International Biomedicine-X research center of the Second Affiliated Hospital, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, China
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
  3. Erqing Gao

    International Biomedicine-X research center of the Second Affiliated Hospital, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, China
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
  4. Xueyuan Fan

    Zhejiang Provincial Key Laboratory of Cancer Molecular Cell Biology, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, China
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
    ORCID icon "This ORCID iD identifies the author of this article:" 0000-0001-8297-1596
  5. Jieli Wei

    Zhejiang Provincial Key Laboratory of Cancer Molecular Cell Biology, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, China
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
  6. Bingcheng Ye

    Zhejiang Provincial Key Laboratory of Cancer Molecular Cell Biology, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, China
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
  7. Suhong Xu

    Division of Biological Sciences, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, China
    For correspondence
    shxu@zju.edu.cn
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
    ORCID icon "This ORCID iD identifies the author of this article:" 0000-0002-4079-340X
  8. Weirui Ma

    Zhejiang Provincial Key Laboratory of Cancer Molecular Cell Biology, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, China
    For correspondence
    maweirui@zju.edu.cn
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
    ORCID icon "This ORCID iD identifies the author of this article:" 0000-0002-9193-7311

Funding

National Natural Science Foundation of China (31972891)

  • Suhong Xu

The funders had no role in study design, data collection and interpretation, or the decision to submit the work for publication.

Copyright

© 2023, Hu et al.

This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License permitting unrestricted use and redistribution provided that the original author and source are credited.

Metrics

  • 8,597
    views
  • 862
    downloads
  • 16
    citations

Views, downloads and citations are aggregated across all versions of this paper published by eLife.

Citations by DOI

Download links

A two-part list of links to download the article, or parts of the article, in various formats.

Downloads (link to download the article as PDF)

Open citations (links to open the citations from this article in various online reference manager services)

Cite this article (links to download the citations from this article in formats compatible with various reference manager tools)

  1. Yucen Hu
  2. Jingxiu Xu
  3. Erqing Gao
  4. Xueyuan Fan
  5. Jieli Wei
  6. Bingcheng Ye
  7. Suhong Xu
  8. Weirui Ma
(2023)
Enhanced single RNA imaging reveals dynamic gene expression in live animals
eLife 12:e82178.
https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.82178

Share this article

https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.82178