Plasma exosome microRNAs (miRNAs) are closely related with the occurrence, diagnosis, and treatment of cancers. However, the underlying molecular mechanisms remain unclear. We herein investigated the solution for tackling the unspecific amplification of plasma exosome microRNAs from cancer patients during the construction of its cDNA library. For the restriction enzyme digesting method, the primers were degraded by exonuclease T (EXOT) and phi29 DNA polymerase. For the magnetic bead separation method, the templates and primers were separated through the DNA binding beads. The separation effects of magnetic beads were detected by agarose gel electrophoresis and modified polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis. The levels of plasma exosome miRNAs from cancer patients and various primers were assayed by RT-qPCR. The results indicated that the unspecific amplification stemmed from USR5SR. EXOT and phi29 DNA polymerase could degrade USR5SR, but the templates were also degraded simultaneously. Regarding the magnetic bead separation method, the best effect was achieved via precipitation of primer fragments by 9% PEG and precipitation of templates by 15% PEG. In conclusion, the magnetic bead separation method efficiently circumvented the unspecific amplification during the construction of cDNA library, and therefore led to the successful construction of cDNA library from plasma exosome miRNA of cancer patients and 293T cells.
Keywords: cDNA library; magnetic bead separation; microRNAs; non-specific amplification.