Chum-RNA allows preparation of a high-quality cDNA library from a single-cell quantity of mRNA without PCR amplification.

ABSTRACT: Linear RNA amplification using T7 RNA polymerase is useful in genome-wide analysis of gene expression using DNA microarrays, but exponential amplification using polymerase chain reaction (PCR) is still required for cDNA library preparation from single-cell quantities of RNA. We have designed a small RNA molecule called chum-RNA that has enabled us to prepare a single-cell cDNA library after four rounds of T7-based linear amplification, without using PCR amplification. Chum-RNA drove cDNA synthesis from only 0.49 femtograms of mRNA (730 mRNA molecules) as a substrate, a quantity that corresponds to a minor population of mRNA molecules in a single mammalian cell. Analysis of the independent cDNA clone of this library (6.6 x 10(5) cfu) suggests that 30-fold RNA amplification occurred in each

SUBMITTER: Tougan T 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC2528176 | biostudies-literature | 2008 Sep

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature