In an advancement that could reshape our understanding of cellular biology, a team of researchers led by chemist Yi Lu at The University of Texas at Austin has developed a breakthrough tool for imaging a newly discovered sugar-coated biomolecule, the glycoRNA.
The development follows the remarkable discovery of glycoRNAs in 2021 by another research group from Stanford, which found these biomolecules to be prevalent across various mammalian species, including humans and crucial to immune system function.
The tool developed by Lu’s team, known as ARPLA, enables scientists to label glycoRNAs with fluorescent tags. This labeling allows researchers to observe the spatial distribution of these biomolecules within individual cells, a significant development for the field.
ARPLA, which works across different organisms and can be adapted for any type of glycoRNA, offers more advanced capabilities compared to the original glycoRNA detection method used by Stanford researchers Ryan Flynn and Carolyn R. Bertozzi. The latter required a specialized medium for cell growth and failed to map the distribution of glycoRNAs within or on cells.
According to Lu, the Robert J.V. Johnson-Welch Regents Chair in Chemistry at UT Austin, this new tool may lead to novel applications for glycoRNAs in medical diagnostics and therapeutics. GlycoRNAs, similarly to the already known sugar-coated molecules like glycoproteins and glycolipids, play crucial roles in biological processes like cell signaling and immunity, and are implicated in disease states like cancer.
However, an intriguing difference observed by the researchers is that glycoRNAs behave inversely to other sugar-coated molecules in cancerous cells. For example, in breast cancer cells, as malignancy increases, the amount of glycoRNAs on the cell surfaces decreases.
Postdoctoral researcher Yuan Ma emphasized the potential of these findings to enhance our understanding of the role of glycoproteins and glycolipids in cancer and immunity. By providing more insight into glycoRNAs, researchers may be able to identify their unique functions, thereby contributing to a more comprehensive understanding of cellular biology.
The study was conducted with the support of the US National Institutes of Health, the Susan G. Komen Foundation and the Robert A. Welch Foundation. Other contributors to the research include Quanbing Mou, Xiangli Shao, Mingkuan Lyu, Valeria Garcia, Linggen Kong, Whitney Lewis, Carson Ward, Zhenglin Yang, Xingxin Pan and S. Stephen Yi.
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