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. 2014 Jul 15;2:48. doi: 10.3389/fchem.2014.00048

Figure 4.

Figure 4

Silencing the Silencers with hairpin-DNA-AuNPs—Gold nanobeacons. (A) Specific Au-nanobeacons are capable of intersecting miRNA pathway, leading to recovery of previously downregulated gene expression while simultaneously discriminating cells where silencing is occurring. The fluorescence signal may allow for tracking cell internalization and sub-cellular localization. The Au-nanobeacons' potential for anti-cancer therapeutics via the silencing of the silencers is demonstrated by blocking the endogenous microRNA pathway via an Anti-miR Au-nanobeacon complementary to the mature microRNA-21 (miR-21), commonly upregulated in cancer phenotypes. (B,C) Au-nanobeacons silencing of endogenous silencers—silencing of miR-21. Confocal imaging (scale bar, 10 μm) shows internalization of 50 nM (B) Anti-miR Au-nanobeacon 50 nM and (C) Nonsense Au-nanobeacon. Target (mature miR-21) recognition leads to change of Anti-miR Au-nanobeacon conformation in the cytoplasm with concomitant fluorescence signal (red, Cy3) encircling the cell nuclei (blue, DAPI) (Conde et al., 2013b). Reproduced with permission from Conde et al. (2013b), Copyright 2013.