Aptamer Sensors for Live-Cell Imaging of Pol II Promoter Activity Judhajeet Ray Iowa State University
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Iowa State University Capstones, Theses and Graduate Theses and Dissertations Dissertations 2014 Aptamer sensors for live-cell imaging of Pol II promoter activity Judhajeet Ray Iowa State University Follow this and additional works at: https://lib.dr.iastate.edu/etd Part of the Biochemistry Commons Recommended Citation Ray, Judhajeet, "Aptamer sensors for live-cell imaging of Pol II promoter activity" (2014). Graduate Theses and Dissertations. 14283. https://lib.dr.iastate.edu/etd/14283 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Iowa State University Capstones, Theses and Dissertations at Iowa State University Digital Repository. It has been accepted for inclusion in Graduate Theses and Dissertations by an authorized administrator of Iowa State University Digital Repository. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Aptamer sensors for live-cell imaging of Pol II promoter activity by Judhajeet Ray A dissertation submitted to the graduate faculty in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY Major: Biochemistry Program of Study Committee: Marit Nilsen-Hamilton, Major Professor George A. Kraus Michael Shogren-Knaak Linda Ambrosio Jeffrey J. Essner Iowa State University Ames, Iowa 2014 Copyright © Judhajeet Ray, 2014. All rights reserved. ii DEDICATION I dedicate this dissertation to my mother, who has always been my inspiration. iii TABLE OF CONTENTS Page ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ........................................................................................... vii ABSTRACT .................................................................................................................... viii CHAPTER 1. INTRODUCTION .................................................................................... 1 Dissertation Organization ............................................................................................... 1 Research Aims and Significance .................................................................................... 3 CHAPTER 2. LITERATURE REVIEW ........................................................................ 9 Aptamers ......................................................................................................................... 9 SELEX ...................................................................................................................... 10 Aptamers to small molecules and antibiotics ............................................................ 13 Aptamers against nucleosides/nucleotides/nucleobases ....................................... 14 Aptamers against small organic molecules ........................................................... 19 Aptamers against organic dyes ............................................................................. 21 Aptamers against antibiotics ................................................................................. 23 Application of Aptamers in Imaging RNA & Transcriptional Dynamics .................... 31 Probe design with aptamers ...................................................................................... 32 Imaging RNA and gene expression .......................................................................... 34 Imaging with hybridization probes ....................................................................... 35 Imaging with aptamer probes ................................................................................ 37 Aptamers as Therapeutics ............................................................................................. 44 References ..................................................................................................................... 53 CHAPTER 3. LIVE-CELL IMAGING OF POL II PROMOTER ACTIVITY TO MONITOR GENE EXPRESSION WITH RNA IMAGETAG REPORTERS .......................................................................................... 63 Abstract ......................................................................................................................... 64 Introduction ................................................................................................................... 64 Materials and Methods .................................................................................................. 66 Solutions and reagents .............................................................................................. 66 Yeast and plasmids ................................................................................................... 67 FRET image acquisition and analysis ....................................................................... 67 Quantitative analysis of IMAGEtag transcripts by RT-qPCR .................................. 69 Results ........................................................................................................................... 70 Basic strategy ............................................................................................................ 70 IMAGEtags specifically detected by FRET ............................................................. 71 Cell to cell variability of promoter activity ............................................................... 72 Real time measurement of promoter activity ............................................................ 74 Discussion ..................................................................................................................... 74 Conclusion .................................................................................................................... 80 iv Acknowledgements ....................................................................................................... 81 Figure Legends .............................................................................................................. 82 Figures........................................................................................................................... 85 References ..................................................................................................................... 89 Supplementary Information .......................................................................................... 91 Methods related to supplementary figures ................................................................ 91 Fluorescently labeled ligands (Figure S1) ................................................................ 91 Ligand properties ...................................................................................................... 94 Spectroscopic measurements (Figure S2) ............................................................. 94 Toxicity (Figure S3) .............................................................................................. 94 Cloning repetitive sequences (Figures S4 and Tables S2 and S3) ............................ 95 Aptamer-ligand binding determined by Isothermal titration calorimetry (Figure S5) ............................................................................................. 99 IMAGEtag and endogenous gene expression determined by quantitative analysis of transcripts by RT-qPCR (Figure S6) ................................ 100 β-galactosidase assay for time course of appearance of a protein reporter after GAL1 activation (Figure S7) ............................................................ 101 Spinach clones ........................................................................................................ 102 Spinach RNA synthesis and analysis (Figure S9) ................................................... 102 Comparison of Spinach aptamer function driven by the 5S and GAL1 promoters (Figures S10-S11) ....................................................................... 103 Supplementary Tables ................................................................................................. 104 S1. Affinities of the tobramycin aptamer for tobramycin and its fluorescently conjugated derivatives ....................................................................... 104 S2. Cloned inserts with repetitive sequences .......................................................... 105 S3. Biological stability of cloned repeated sequences ............................................ 107 Supplementary Figures ............................................................................................... 108 Figure S1. Structures of synthesized ligands .......................................................... 108 Figure S2. Absorbance and fluorescence spectra of aptamer ligands ..................... 109 Figure S3. Toxicity for S. cerevisiae of fluorescently modified ligands ................ 110 Figure S4. Cloning strategy for expanding the number of copies of a DNA sequence to produce a repeating sequence. ................................................... 111 Figure S5. Binding affinity between tobramycin and single or multiple tandem tobramycin aptamer determined by ITC .................................................... 113 Figure S6. Time-course of changes in RNA levels after induction of 5xTOB IMAGEtags and galactokinase in yeast ..................................................... 115 Figure S7. Time-course of change in β-galactosidase activity with GAL1 promoter activation ...................................................................................... 116 Figure S8. Stabilities of the IMAGEtag RNAs ....................................................... 117 Figure S9. Analysis of Spinach RNA in vitro........................................................