A Novel Cell Membrane-Associated RNA Extraction Method and Its Application in the Discovery of Breast Cancer Markers

Anal Chem. 2023 Aug 8;95(31):11706-11713. doi: 10.1021/acs.analchem.3c01689. Epub 2023 Jul 17.

Abstract

Cell membrane-associated RNA (mem-RNA) has been demonstrated to be cell-specific and disease-related and are considered as potential biomarkers for disease diagnostics, drug delivery, and cell screening. However, there is still a lack of methods specifically designed to extract mem-RNA from cells, limiting the discovery and applications of mem-RNA. In this study, we propose the first all-in-one solution for high-purity mem-RNA isolation based on two types of magnetic nanoparticles, named MREMB (Membrane-associated RNA Extraction based on Magnetic Beads), which achieved ten times enrichment of cell membrane components and over 90% recovery rate of RNA extraction. To demonstrate MREMB's potential in clinical research, we extracted and sequenced mem-RNA of typical breast cancer MCF-7, MDA-MB-231, and SKBR-3 cell lines and non-neoplastic breast epithelial cell MCF-10A. Compared to total RNA, sequencing results revealed that membrane/secreted protein-encoding mRNAs and long noncoding RNAs (lncRNAs) were enriched in the mem-RNA, some of which were significantly overexpressed in the three cancer cell lines, including extracellular matrix-related genes COL5A1 and lncRNA TALAM1. The results indicated that MREMB could enrich membrane/secreted protein-coding RNA and amplify the expression differences of related RNAs between cancer and non-neoplastic cells, promising for cancer biomarker discovery.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Breast / metabolism
  • Breast Neoplasms* / genetics
  • Breast Neoplasms* / metabolism
  • Cell Line
  • Cell Line, Tumor
  • Cell Membrane / metabolism
  • Female
  • Gene Expression Regulation, Neoplastic
  • Humans
  • RNA

Substances

  • RNA