A gapmer aptamer nanobiosensor for real-time monitoring of transcription and translation in single cells.

Transcription and translation are under tight spatiotemporal regulation among cells to coordinate multicellular organization. Methods that allow massively parallel detection of gene expression dynamics at the single cell level are required for elucidating the complex regulatory mechanisms. Here we present a multiplex nanobiosensor for real-time monitoring of protein and mRNA expression dynamics in live cells based on gapmer aptamers and complementary locked nucleic acid probes. Using the multiplex nanobiosensor, we quantified spatiotemporal dynamics of vascular endothelial growth factor A mRNA and protein expressions in single human endothelial cells during microvascular self-organization. Our results revealed distinct gene regulatory processes in the heterogeneous cell subpopulations.