Live-cell transcriptomics with engineered virus-like particles.
Engineered virus-like particles enable real-time, live-cell transcriptomic profiling without cell lysis, capturing dynamic gene expression over multiple time points.
- Why it matters: Current methods require cell destruction, preventing the study of transcriptional changes in living cells over time, which limits understanding of dynamic biological processes.
- What they did: Researchers engineered mammalian cells to produce VLPs that export mRNA, allowing repeated sampling of media to monitor transcriptional states in complex systems, including co-cultures and stem cell differentiation.
- The result: This approach successfully tracked cellular gene expression dynamics, such as vasculogenesis in microphysiological systems, demonstrating broad potential for live-cell, transcriptome-wide analysis.