Enzymatic Site Specific Labeling of RNA with Unnatural Nucleobases
This patent-pending RNA-TAG methodology has applications for imaging, and may also play a key role in discovering new RNA-protein interactions, drug screening applications, and exploring RNA lifetime dynamics.
Chemists from UC San Diego have addressed this need by developing an enzymatic method (RNA-TAG; transglycosylation at guanosine), to directly append large functional molecules site-specifically to RNA. This method utilizes a bacterial enzyme (tRNA guanine transglycosylase; TGT) to exchange specific guanine nucleobases with functional derivatives of the bacterial nucleobase PreQ1. Any RNA with this particular hairpin structure, even relatively large transcripts of genes, can be tagged in this way, which should prove useful in a wide variety of biomedical and biochemical applications.
Related Materials Alexander SC, Busby KN, Cole CM, Zhou CY, Devaraj NK. Site-specific covalent labeling of RNA by enzymatic transglycosylation. J Am Chem Soc. 2015 Sep 22. Tech ID/UC Case 25472/2015-196-0 Related Cases 2015-196-0
News Release (23-Sept-2015): Chemists Devise a New, Versatile Way to Tag RNA (Susan Brown)
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