New method can precisely monitor the effect of genes in cells

A new method makes it possible to observe exactly how genes shape the behavior of individual cells. Researchers have succeeded in precisely reconstructing the characteristics of the genetic material in the smallest of spaces and over a longer period of time.

A look inside: Researchers track mRNAs across space and time

RNA is a central information carrier in biology, but how the life molecule behaves in the cell is still largely a mystery. In recent years, scientists have been able to better understand the work of messenger RNA (mRNA) over space and time in cells, but until now it has not been possible to produce precise images of individual actions over a long period of time. This is exactly where scientists from MIT’s Broad Institute and Harvard now have their say with a new approach.

The team’s goal: tracking mRNAs over space and time in individual cells. The solution developed is called TEMPOmap (temporal resolved in situ sequencing and mapping) and promises a minor revolution in gene research. As the scientists describe, their method makes it possible for the first time to understand the long-term subcellular movements of many RNA molecules. How Phys cited, the system has the potential to track a single molecule “from its birth to its death.”

New ways to measure RNA movement

For TEMPOmap, the researchers rely on chemically labeling RNA molecules as they are formed. This in turn makes it possible to sequence them at specific locations in the cell and at multiple points in time. The researchers already want to be able to track “thousands of RNA molecules” in parallel. In the first tests, which the team describes in the journal Nature, it was possible to understand exactly the speed at which the molecules were transcribed from the DNA and moved through the cell.

“New ways of measuring RNA movement and stability patterns can provide new insights into the fundamental principles of molecular biology and help us to better understand how RNA movement patterns affect the function of cells in many different human cell types,” said the lead author of the Study, Xiao Wang.

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