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Updated: Aug 22, 2025

Real-time Imaging of Single Engineered RNA Transcripts in Living Cells Using Ratiometric Bimolecular Beacons
Published on: August 6, 2014
An improved imaging system that corrects MS2-induced RNA destabilization
Weihan Li1,2, Anna Maekiniemi3,4, Hanae Sato5,6
1Program in RNA Biology, Albert Einstein College of Medicine, The Bronx, NY, USA. weihan.li@einsteinmed.edu.
None:
The MS2 and MS2-coat protein (MS2-MCP) imaging system is widely used to study messenger RNA (mRNA) spatial distribution in living cells. Here, we report that the MS2-MCP system destabilizes some tagged mRNAs by activating the nonsense-mediated mRNA decay pathway. We introduce an improved version, which counteracts this effect by increasing the efficiency of translation termination of the tagged mRNAs. Improved versions were developed for both yeast and mammalian systems.
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