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Updated: Nov 17, 2025

Real-time Imaging of Single Engineered RNA Transcripts in Living Cells Using Ratiometric Bimolecular Beacons
Published on: August 6, 2014
Design, synthesis and cell imaging of a simple peptide-based probe for the selective detection of RNA
Wenxiu Duan1, Fengyang Huang, Yihui Bi
1Hefei National Laboratory for Physical Sciences at Microscale, the CAS Key Laboratory of Innate Immunity and Chronic Disease, School of Basic Medical Sciences, Division of Life Sciences and Medicine, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei, 230027, China. wujiang@ustc.edu.cn geyushu@ustc.edu.cn dliu919@ustc.edu.cn.
Abstract:
Here we present a novel peptide-based fluorescent "turn-on" molecule P1 for detecting RNA, in a double or single strand, AU-rich or CG-rich. Both computational and experimental studies indicate that the detection efficiency depends on the binding affinity of P1 and conformational changes. P1 could be applied for cell imaging without any additional transfection vectors. Selective detection of RNA in cells was determined by RNase digestion. Successful application of P1 for RNA imaging in cell mitosis reveals that it may have broad applications in research, biotechnology and medical science.
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