This technology is a modular molecular sensor that can be used to directly visualize and quantify intracellular analyte levels.
Detection and quantification of small molecules and proteins are critical for biological research. Although there are many fluorescent markers for the detection and localization of proteins in vivo, many suffer from high background fluorescence when measuring cytosolic protein levels. Aptameric sensors made of short oligonucleotide strands fluoresce only when they are in contact with the specific analyte but are not readily adaptable for imaging within cells and require exogenous delivery of DNA or RNA molecules rather than fluorescent proteins that can be expressed in cells. There are currently no specific aptameric sensors that are readily usable in vivo.
This technology is an aptameric sensor that is modular in design and fluoresces only upon binding a specific protein or small molecule. The sensors are allosteric, contain no chemical modifications, and are non-covalently bound to the fluorophore. The modular sensors have a recognition domain that binds the target molecule and a domain that activates a reporter domain to which the fluorophore is linked, making any of these three domains easily adaptable to other analytes or fluorophores. These sensors can be transfected into cells and then expressed directly such that upon binding the target analyte, fluorescence intensity increases 1000-fold.
This technology has been validated with analytes including ATP, flavin mononucleotide, and theophylline, with constructs consisting only of expressible RNA.
IR 1567
Licensing Contact: Jerry Kokoshka