Department of Plant Biology, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences (SLU), Uppsala, Sweden.
Nat Plants. 2023 Jul;9(7):1094-1102. doi: 10.1038/s41477-023-01442-9. Epub 2023 Jun 15.
Multicellular organisms result from complex developmental processes largely orchestrated through the quantitative spatiotemporal regulation of gene expression. Yet, obtaining absolute counts of messenger RNAs at a three-dimensional resolution remains challenging, especially in plants, owing to high levels of tissue autofluorescence that prevent the detection of diffraction-limited fluorescent spots. In situ hybridization methods based on amplification cycles have recently emerged, but they are laborious and often lead to quantification biases. In this article, we present a simple method based on single-molecule RNA fluorescence in situ hybridization to visualize and count the number of mRNA molecules in several intact plant tissues. In addition, with the use of fluorescent protein reporters, our method also enables simultaneous detection of mRNA and protein quantity, as well as subcellular distribution, in single cells. With this method, research in plants can now fully explore the benefits of the quantitative analysis of transcription and protein levels at cellular and subcellular resolution in plant tissues.
多细胞生物是由复杂的发育过程产生的,这些过程主要通过基因表达的定量时空调控来协调。然而,由于组织自发荧光水平高,阻碍了对衍射限制荧光斑点的检测,因此以三维分辨率获得信使 RNA 的绝对计数仍然具有挑战性,尤其是在植物中。最近出现了基于扩增循环的原位杂交方法,但它们很繁琐,并且常常导致定量偏差。在本文中,我们提出了一种基于单分子 RNA 荧光原位杂交的简单方法,用于可视化和计数几种完整植物组织中的 mRNA 分子数量。此外,使用荧光蛋白报告基因,我们的方法还能够在单细胞中同时检测 mRNA 和蛋白质的数量以及亚细胞分布。有了这种方法,植物研究现在可以充分探索在细胞和亚细胞分辨率下对转录和蛋白质水平进行定量分析在植物组织中的优势。