Dynamics and Traffic for Transfecting Exogenous MicroRNA as Studied by Live-Cell Microscopy

MicroRNA (miRNA) has emerged as an important gene-regulator that shows great potential in gene therapy because of its unique roles in gene-regulation. However, the knowledge on their function and transportation in vivo is still lacking, and there are limited obvious evidences to define intracellular transportation of miRNA. In this study, the dynamics of exogenous miR-21 transfected into HeLa cells was traced by live-cell microscopy. Their transportation at key time points was recorded and dynamic properties were analyzed by single particle tracking (SPT) and mean square displacement (MSD) calculation. Results showed that the exogenous miRNAs bounded to cells quickly and went through lysosome into cytosol, where they were subsequently recruited into p-body. They finally were degraded, otherwise went back to cytosol in some way. Long time observation and analysis of motion mode showed that the miRNAs were confined in a small region and their motion modes were flexible in different intracellular microenvironment after entering the cells.