Shrayana Ghosh, Amity University Kolkata
Recently researchers from MIT and Harvard Medical School have discovered a way to mark individual messenger RNA molecules inside a tissue sample using a new methodology for expanding tissue and then sequencing the RNA. This approach provides a unique snapshot of the genes that are expressed in various parts of a cell, and it may allow scientists to learn much more about how the position of a cell or its interactions with neighboring cells affects gene expression. Apart from this, the technique may also be useful for mapping and classifying cells in the brain or other tissues according to their function.
Boyden, one of the senior authors who is an investigator at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute and the MIT McGovern Institute, conveys that the new sequencing technique is built on a method that Boyden and his team devised in 2015 which includes the embedment of water-absorbent polymers into a tissue sample making the tissue sample swell up without disrupting its overall organization. By doing so, the tissues expand by a factor or hundred and more which allows the scientist to get a very high-resolution image of the tissue even under a regular light microscope.
George Church, another senior author who is a professor of genetics at Harvard Medical college developed an RNA sequencing technique in 2014 called the Fluorescent in Situ Sequencing or FISSEQ which allows the identification and sequencing of thousands of mRNA molecules in a lab dish. Boyden and Church on joining forces created a new technique called the Expansion Sequencing or ExSeq with the combination of tissue expansion and in situ RNA sequencing. ExSeq expands the tissue thus giving a resolution that helps researchers to pinpoint the molecule’s location and label and sequence thousands of RNA molecules.
The researchers also demonstrated that ExSeq could help researchers to investigate gene expression in a more focused manner by searching for a particular collection of RNA sequences that correspond to genes of interest.
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Source- https://phys.org/news/2021-01-high-resolution-glimpse-gene-cells.html
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