Toehold-initiated rolling circle amplification for visualizing individual microRNAs in situ in single cells

The ability to quantitate and visualize microRNAs (miRNAs) in situ in single cells would greatly facilitate the elucidation of miRNA-mediated regulatory circuits and their disease associations. A toehold-initiated strand-displacement process was used to initiate rolling circle amplification of specific miRNAs, an approach that achieves both stringent recognition and in situ amplification of the target miRNA. This assay, termed toehold-initiated rolling circle amplification (TIRCA), can be utilized to identify miRNAs at physiological temperature with high specificity and to visualize individual miRNAs in situ in single cells within 3 h. TIRCA is a competitive candidate technique for in situ miRNA imaging and may help us to understand the role of miRNAs in cellular processes and human diseases in more detail.