Begin by designing a complementary nucleic acid probe that is labelled with a detectable marker, such as a fluorophore or an enzyme.
Sample Preparation:
Fix and preserve the biological specimen, which can be an entire organism, an organ, or a tissue. Common specimens include embryos, larvae, or small tissues.
Permeabilization:
Treat the sample to make its cell membranes permeable. This step facilitates the penetration of the probe into the cells.
Hybridization:
Incubate the specimen with the labeled probe under conditions that allow for specific base pairing. The probe will hybridize with the target RNA sequences present in the tissue.
Washing:
Remove any unbound or nonspecifically bound probes through a series of washes. This step is crucial for reducing background noise and increasing the specificity of the signal.
Detection:
Visualize the location of the hybridized probe by detecting the label. Fluorescent probes can be visualized using fluorescence microscopy, while enzymatic labels can be detected through colorimetric or chemiluminescent reactions.
Mounting:
Mount the specimen on a slide or another suitable medium for microscopy analysis.
Probe Design:
Designing a specific and sensitive probe is crucial. The probe should be long enough to provide specificity but short enough to allow efficient penetration into the tissue.
Tissue Penetration:
Achieving uniform probe penetration throughout the tissue is challenging, especially in larger or denser samples. Ensuring proper permeabilization is essential.
Background Signal:
Minimizing background signal is crucial for accurate interpretation. Adequate washing steps and optimizing hybridization conditions are key to reducing nonspecific binding.
Signal Amplification:
In cases of low expression levels, signal amplification may be necessary to enhance the detectability of the hybridization signal.
Tissue Integrity:
Maintaining the integrity of the tissue during the various steps is important to preserve the spatial arrangement of cells and tissues.
Non-specific Binding:
Non-specific binding of the probe to cellular components other than the target RNA can lead to false-positive signals. Blocking reagents and stringent washing conditions can help address this issue.
Negative Control:
Sense Probe
RNA in situ hybridization allows researchers to pinpoint the exact locations within tissues or cells where a specific gene is being expressed.
The technique can reveal the timing of gene expression during developmental processes or in response to specific physiological or environmental cues.
RNA in situ hybridization allows for the comparison of gene expression patterns between different experimental conditions, developmental stages, or disease states.
The comparative analysis helps identify changes in gene expression associated with specific biological events.
RNA in situ hybridization provides information at the cellular level, allowing researchers to identify individual cells expressing the target gene.
The level of resolution is crucial for understanding the heterogeneity of gene expression within tissues.
RNA in situ hybridization serves as a complementary method to other gene expression analysis techniques, such as quantitative PCR or microarray analysis.
The technique can validate and confirm gene expression data obtained through these methods.
By correlating the spatial and temporal patterns of gene expression with specific physiological or developmental processes, researchers can infer the potential functional roles of the gene in those processes.
RNA in situ hybridization is widely used in disease research to examine altered gene expression patterns associated with pathological conditions.
Understanding gene expression changes in diseases can provide insights into the underlying molecular mechanisms.
Immunohistochemistry (IHC) allows the detection and localization of proteins within tissues, providing information about the presence and distribution of the corresponding gene product.
IHC offers cellular resolution, allowing researchers to identify the specific cells expressing the protein.
By corroborating RNA expression data with protein expression, researchers can strengthen the evidence for gene activity.
The availability of specific and high-quality antibodies is crucial in IHC.
Cross-reactivity or nonspecific binding of antibodies can lead to false-positive signals in IHC.
The target epitope must be accessible in the fixed tissue for IHC.
Some antibodies may not effectively recognize their target in formalin-fixed, paraffin-embedded samples in IHC.
IHC is often semi-quantitative, making it challenging to precisely quantify protein expression levels.
Quantitative Real-Time Polymerase Chain Reaction (qRT-PCR) allows for the precise quantification of mRNA levels, providing quantitative information about gene expression.
qRT-PCR is highly sensitive and can detect low levels of gene expression.
qRT-PCR enables the comparison of gene expression levels between different samples, conditions, or time points.
qRT-PCR provides bulk mRNA measurements from homogenized tissue, so it lacks spatial information about gene expression patterns within specific regions.
Accurate normalization is critical in qRT-PCR, and the choice of reference genes can impact the results.
In some cases, stable reference genes may not be readily available for qRT-PCR.
qRT-PCR offers high sensitivity, but it does not provide cellular resolution, making it less suitable for identifying specific cell types expressing the gene.