Abstract
Successful detection of very small RNAs (tiny RNA, ~14 nt in length) by Northern blotting is dependent on improved Northern blot protocols that combine chemical crosslinking of RNA with 1-ethyl-3-(3-dimethylaminopropyl)-carbodiimide (EDC) to positively charged membranes, the use of native polyacrylamide gels, and the development of highly sensitive and specific probes modified with locked nucleic acids (LNA). In this protocol, we show that Northern blot detection of tiny RNAs with 5′-digoxigenin-labeled DNA/LNA mixmer probes is a highly sensitive and specific method and, in our hands, more sensitive than using a corresponding DNA/LNA mixmer probe with a 5′-32P-end label.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
References
Chen C, Ridzon DA, Broomer AJ, Zhou Z, Lee DH, Nguyen JT, Barbisin M, Xu NL, Mahuvakar VR, Andersen MR, Lao KQ, Livak KJ, Guegler KJ (2005) Real-time quantification of microRNAs by stem-loop RT-PCR. Nucleic Acids Res 33(20):e179. doi:10.1093/nar/gni178, 33/20/e179 [pii]
Pall GS, Codony-Servat C, Byrne J, Ritchie L, Hamilton A (2007) Carbodiimide-mediated cross-linking of RNA to nylon membranes improves the detection of siRNA, miRNA and piRNA by northern blot. Nucleic Acids Res 35(8):e60. doi:10.1093/nar/gkm112, gkm112 [pii]
Varallyay E, Burgyan J, Havelda Z (2008) MicroRNA detection by northern blotting using locked nucleic acid probes. Nat Protoc 3(2):190–196. doi:10.1038/nprot.2007.528, nprot.2007.528 [pii]
Beckmann BM, Grünweller A, Hartmann RK (2014) Northern blot detection of endogenous small RNAs. In: Hartmann RK, Bindereif A, Schön A, Westhof E (eds) Handbook of RNA biochemistry, 2nd edn. Wiley-VCH, Weinheim, pp 89–103
Beckmann BM, Grünweller A, Weber MH, Hartmann RK (2010) Northern blot detection of endogenous small RNAs (approximately 14 nt) in bacterial total RNA extracts. Nucleic Acids Res 38(14):e147. doi:10.1093/nar/gkq437, gkq437 [pii]
Pall GS, Hamilton AJ (2008) Improved northern blot method for enhanced detection of small RNA. Nat Protoc 3(6):1077–1084. doi:10.1038/nprot.2008.67, nprot.2008.67 [pii]
Grünweller A, Müller PK (1997) Low background and short exposure times in mapping of DNaseI-hypersensitive sites using digoxigenin-labeled probes. Anal Biochem 247(1):172–175. doi:10.1006/abio.1997.2044, S0003-2697(97)92044-3 [pii]
Burenina OY, Hoch PG, Damm K, Salas M, Zatsepin TS, Lechner M, Oretskaya TS, Kubareva EA, Hartmann RK (2014) Mechanistic comparison of Bacillus subtilis 6S–1 and 6S–2 RNAs–commonalities and differences. RNA 20(3):348–359. doi:10.1261/rna.042077.113, rna.042077.113 [pii]
Acknowledgment
This work was supported by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (GK 1384) to R.K.H. and G.K. and the Russian Foundation for Basic Research (14-04-91336) to O.Y.B. and E.A.K.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2015 Springer Science+Business Media New York
About this protocol
Cite this protocol
Damm, K. et al. (2015). Improved Northern Blot Detection of Small RNAs Using EDC Crosslinking and DNA/LNA Probes. In: Rederstorff, M. (eds) Small Non-Coding RNAs. Methods in Molecular Biology, vol 1296. Humana Press, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4939-2547-6_5
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4939-2547-6_5
Publisher Name: Humana Press, New York, NY
Print ISBN: 978-1-4939-2546-9
Online ISBN: 978-1-4939-2547-6
eBook Packages: Springer Protocols