New glowing tag lets scientists watch RNA move through plants
Zhang J, Tao Y, Zhao Y, Lei M, Shen Y
Crispr
The signal that tells a plant when to flower has to travel from leaf to stem, and this tool reveals the actual route and helpers it uses, which could eventually let breeders fine-tune bloom timing in crops and garden plants alike.
Plant cells are messy and glow with background noise, which makes it really hard to watch a single RNA molecule move around inside them. Researchers engineered a CRISPR-based probe that stays dark unless it grabs onto its target RNA, and unbound probes get destroyed automatically, so only the real signal shows up. They used it to film the RNA that tells plants to flower as it squeezes through cell-to-cell channels and travels long distances, and found a helper protein that assists this journey.
Key Findings
Developed a CRISPR-dCas13X imaging system with binding-activated fluorescence stabilization that destroys unbound probes via a newly identified plant-specific degron, cutting background noise
Achieved single-transcript detection of endogenous FT mRNA in living Nicotiana benthamiana cells and stable Arabidopsis thaliana lines, revealing its plasmodesmata-targeting and cell-to-cell trafficking
Identified the RNA-binding protein GRP7 as a contributor to efficient long-distance transport of FT mRNA, the key florigenic (flowering) signal
chevron_right Technical Summary
Scientists built a glowing molecular tag that lights up only when it latches onto a specific RNA message inside living plant cells, letting them watch that message travel in real time. Using it, they tracked a flowering-signal RNA as it moved cell to cell across a plant and found a protein that helps shuttle it along.
Abstract Preview
Original paper
A binding-activated CRISPR/dCas13X imaging system enables precise RNA tracking in plants.
Visualizing the spatiotemporal dynamics of native RNA molecules with single-transcript-level sensitivity in living plant cells remains a formidable challenge due to the high background noise caused...
open_in_new Read full abstractAbstract copyright held by the original publisher.
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