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. Author manuscript; available in PMC: 2011 Sep 11.
Published in final edited form as: Bioconjug Chem. 2008 Nov 19;19(11):2205–2211. doi: 10.1021/bc800322a

Figure 7.

Figure 7

The results of negative control studies. (a) The low background signal from ‘random’ beacons in the nuclei of living cells. These negative-control molecular beacons have no target in the mammalian genome thus indicating non-specific opening of probes during delivery to and diffusion in the nucleus. (b) Fluorescence signal obtained by delivering U1-targeting molecular beacons without the NLS peptide. Only a few discrete foci in the peri-nuclear region in the cytoplasm could be observed but no significant signal in the nucleus of the living cell. (c) Fluorescence signal as a result of delivering unmodified molecular beacons targeting U3 snoRNA, indicating that without the NLS peptide attached to the U3-targeting beacons no significant signal could be detected in the nucleus or cytoplasm of a living cell.