Kinetic Screening of Nuclease Activity using Nucleic Acid Probes

Summary

Altered nuclease activity has been associated with different human conditions, underlying its potential as a biomarker. The modular and easy to implement screening methodology presented in this paper allows the selection of specific nucleic acid probes for harnessing nuclease activity as a biomarker of disease.

Abstract

Nucleases are a class of enzymes that break down nucleic acids by catalyzing the hydrolysis of the phosphodiester bonds that link the ribose sugars. Nucleases display a variety of vital physiological roles in prokaryotic and eukaryotic organisms, ranging from maintaining genome stability to providing protection against pathogens. Altered nuclease activity has been associated with several pathological conditions including bacterial infections and cancer. To this end, nuclease activity has shown great potential to be exploited as a specific biomarker. However, a robust and reproducible screening method based on this activity remains highly desirable.

Herein, we introduce a method that enables screening for nuclease activity using nucleic acid probes as substrates, with the scope of differentiating between pathological and healthy conditions. This method offers the possibility of designing new probe libraries, with increasing specificity, in an iterative manner. Thus, multiple rounds of screening are necessary to refine the probes' design with enhanced features, taking advantage of the availability of chemically modified nucleic acids. The considerable potential of the proposed technology lies in its flexibility, high reproducibility, and versatility for the screening of nuclease activity associated with disease conditions. It is expected that this technology will allow the development of promising diagnostic tools with a great potential in the clinic.

Introduction

Nucleases are a class of enzymes capable of cleaving the phosphodiester bonds that form the backbone structure of nucleic acid molecules. The vast diversity of nucleases makes their classification rather difficult. However, there are some common criteria used to describe nucleases, such as substrate preference (deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) or ribonucleic acid (RNA)), cleavage site (endonucleases or exonucleases), or metal ion dependency, among others¹. Nucleases are highly conserved catalytic enzymes that have fundamental roles in both, prokaryotic and eukaryotic organisms and have been used, and continue to be used, as gene editing tools

Protocol

1. Oligonucleotide library design and preparation

1. Library design
   1. Based on the following criteria design a library of quenched fluorescent oligonucleotide probes between 8 and 12-mer long to avoid secondary structure formation, with equal length for all probes.
      1. Include at least one DNA and one RNA random sequence containing a combination of adenine (A), guanine (G), cytosine (C) and thymine (T)/uracil (U) (DNA and RNA probes in Table 1).
         NOTE: The DNA and RNA sequences described in Table 1 have been useful as the initial substrates for classifying an unknown type of nuclease activity, either....

Results

Figure 1 shows the work flow of this methodology, which is divided into two screening rounds. In the first round of screening, we used 5 DNA probes (DNA, DNA Poly A, DNA Poly T, DNA Poly C and DNA Poly G) and also 5 RNA probes (RNA, RNA Poly A, RNA Poly U RNA Poly C and RNA Poly G). The raw data of this screening round can be found in Supplementary Table 1. In the second round, chemically modified probes were synthesized by replacing the RNA sequence with chemically modified.......

Discussion

Alterations of nuclease activity have been associated with a wide variety of disease phenotypes, including different types of cancer and bacterial infections. These alterations are proposed to be the causative agent of a condition¹⁴, while in other cases they are the consequence of a detrimental physiological event²⁰ or pathogenic agent^16,26. Not surprisingly, attempts to use nucleases and nuclease activity as a dia.......

Materials

List of materials used in this article

Name	Company	Catalog Number	Comments
Black bottom, non-treated 96 well plate	Fisher Scientific	10000631
Cytation1	BioTek	CYT1FAV
Eppendorf tubes	Thermofisher	11926955
Escherichia coli	ATCC	25922
Microbank cryogenic storage vial containing beads	Pro-Lab Diagnostics	22-286-155
Nucleic acid probes	Biomers.net	#
Phosphate Buffer Saline containing MgCl2 and CaCl2	Gibco™	14040117
Salmonella enterica subs. Enterica	ATCC	14028
Tris-EDTA	Fisher Scientific	10647633
Tryptone Soya Agar with defibrinated sheep blood	Thermo Fisher Scientific	10362223
Tryptic Soy Broth	Sigma Aldrich	22092