Telomerase detection using a DNA-PAINT strategy

Abstract

Telomerase plays an important role in maintaining the length of telomere during cell division and is recognized as a new kind of biomarkers for cancer diagnosis. In this work, we present a brand new telomerase detection strategy based on a DNA-PAINT (DNA points accumulation for imaging in nanoscale topography) like strategy. With an extraordinary spatial resolution (~ 10 nm), the DNA-PAINT based strategy offers several advantages. First, it avoids complicated polymerase chain reaction (PCR) and electrophoresis procedures. Second, it enables super resolution imaging of the reaction products with a high signal-to-noise ratio and facilitates the location of telomeric elongation sites on the single particle level, which results in a high sensitivity. Third, the detection scheme of the DNA-PAINT strategy allows direct in-situ visualization of the telomeric elongation process. All these advantages make the DNA-PAINT telomerase detection strategy significant for dynamic investigation of telomerase related physiological processes as well as cancer diagnosis.