SRB-2: a promiscuous rainbow aptamer for live-cell RNA imaging

The SRB-2 aptamer originally selected against sulforhodamine B is shown here to promiscuously bind to various dyes with different colors. Binding of SRB-2 to these dyes results in either fluorescence increase or decrease, making them attractive for fluorescence microscopy and biological assays. By systematically varying fluorophore structural elements and measuring dissociation constants, the principles of fluorophore recognition by SRB-2 were analyzed. The obtained structure-activity relationships allowed us to rationally design a novel, bright, orange fluorescent turn-on probe (TMR-DN) with low background fluorescence, enabling no-wash live-cell RNA imaging. This new probe improved the signal-to-background ratio of fluorescence images by one order of magnitude over best previously known probe for this aptamer. The utility of TMR-DN is demonstrated by imaging ribosomal and messenger RNAs, allowing the observation of distinct localization patterns in bacteria and mammalian cells. The SRB-2 / TMR-DN system is found to be orthogonal to the Spinach/DFHBI and MG/Malachite green aptamer/dye systems.