Zhang Xiangru, Li Weiwei, Liao Guomiao, Zhang Yu, Sheng Jing, Long Zhenhao, Zhang Nan, Zhu Ji, Liu Xiangjun, Shangguan Dihua
Beijing National Laboratory for Molecular Sciences, Key Laboratory of Analytical Chemistry for Living Biosystems, CAS Research/Education Center for Excellence in Molecular Sciences, Institute of Chemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences Beijing 100190 China.
School of Chemical Sciences, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences Beijing 100049 China.
Chem Sci. 2025 Sep 2. doi: 10.1039/d5sc05806f.
Molecules on the cell surface play crucial roles in cellular material exchange, molecular recognition, signal transduction, migration, growth, differentiation, and pathological processes. Due to the lack of simple and effective methods, little is known about the nucleic acids on the cell surface. In this paper, using synthetic DNA G4 as probes, we found that a significant amount of RNA was associated with the cell surface during cell culture. Both RNA and DNA G4 were found to bind RNA-binding proteins on the cell surface, such as nucleolin. The amount of RNA bound to the cell surface varies greatly among different cell lines, and increases over time after treatment with proteases or RNase A. The RNA bound on the cell surface is primarily internal cellular RNA fragments between 20-100 nt in length, including microRNAs. Addition of RNase A in the culture medium to remove cell surface RNA can inhibit cell growth and promote cell migration. These results provide a preliminary understanding of RNA bound to the cell surface and offer new perspectives on the metabolism and function of nucleic acids inside and outside the cells.
细胞表面的分子在细胞物质交换、分子识别、信号转导、迁移、生长、分化及病理过程中发挥着关键作用。由于缺乏简单有效的方法，人们对细胞表面的核酸了解甚少。在本文中，我们以合成的DNA G4作为探针，发现在细胞培养过程中有大量RNA与细胞表面相关联。RNA和DNA G4均被发现可与细胞表面的RNA结合蛋白（如核仁素）结合。不同细胞系中与细胞表面结合的RNA量差异很大，在用蛋白酶或核糖核酸酶A处理后会随时间增加。结合在细胞表面的RNA主要是长度在20 - 100 nt之间的细胞内RNA片段，包括微小RNA。在培养基中添加核糖核酸酶A以去除细胞表面RNA可抑制细胞生长并促进细胞迁移。这些结果为结合在细胞表面的RNA提供了初步认识，并为细胞内外核酸的代谢和功能提供了新的视角。
