Multiplex Rainbow Technology Offers New View of the Brain

Posted on October 8th, 2019 by Dr. Francis Collins

Proteins imaged with this new approach — Caption: Confocal LNA-PRISM imaging of neuronal synapses. Conventional images of cell nuclei and two proteins (top row, three images on the left), along with 11 PRISM images of proteins and one composite, multiplexed image (bottom row, right). Credit: Adapted from Guo SM, Nature Communications, 2019

The NIH-led Brain Research through Advancing Innovative Neurotechnologies® (BRAIN) Initiative is revolutionizing our understanding of how the brain works through its creation of new imaging tools. One of the latest advances—used to produce this rainbow of images—makes it possible to view dozens of proteins in rapid succession in a single tissue sample containing thousands of neural connections, or synapses.

Apart from their colors, most of these images look nearly identical at first glance. But, upon closer inspection, you’ll see some subtle differences among them in both intensity and pattern. That’s because the images capture different proteins within the complex network of synapses—and those proteins may be present in that network in different amounts and locations. Such findings may shed light on key differences among synapses, as well as provide new clues into the roles that synaptic proteins may play in schizophrenia and various other neurological disorders.

Synapses contain hundreds of proteins that regulate the release of chemicals called neurotransmitters, which allow neurons to communicate. Each synaptic protein has its own specific job in the process. But there have been longstanding technical difficulties in observing synaptic proteins at work. Conventional fluorescence microscopy can visualize at most four proteins in a synapse.

As described in Nature Communications [1], researchers led by Mark Bathe, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Cambridge, and Jeffrey Cottrell, Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, Cambridge, have just upped this number considerably while delivering high quality images. They did it by adapting an existing imaging method called DNA PAINT [2]. The researchers call their adapted method PRISM. It is short for: Probe-based Imaging for Sequential Multiplexing.

Here’s how it works: First, researchers label proteins or other molecules of interest using antibodies that recognize those proteins. Those antibodies include a unique DNA probe that helps with the next important step: making the proteins visible under a microscope.

To do it, they deliver short snippets of complementary fluorescent DNA, which bind the DNA-antibody probes. While each protein of interest is imaged separately, researchers can easily wash the probes from a sample to allow a series of images to be generated, each capturing a different protein of interest.

In the original DNA PAINT, the DNA strands bind and unbind periodically to create a blinking fluorescence that can be captured using super-resolution microscopy. But that makes the process slow, requiring about half an hour for each protein.

To speed things up with PRISM, Bathe and his colleagues altered the fluorescent DNA probes. They used synthetic DNA that’s specially designed to bind more tightly or “lock” to the DNA-antibody. This gives a much brighter signal without the blinking effect. As a result, the imaging can be done faster, though at slightly lower resolution.

Though the team now captures images of 12 proteins within a sample in about an hour, this is just a start. As more DNA-antibody probes are developed for synaptic proteins, the team can readily ramp up this number to 30 protein targets.

Thanks to the BRAIN Initiative, researchers now possess a powerful new tool to study neurons. PRISM will help them learn more mechanistically about the inner workings of synapses and how they contribute to a range of neurological conditions.

References:

[1] Multiplexed and high-throughput neuronal fluorescence imaging with diffusible probes. Guo SM, Veneziano R, Gordonov S, Li L, Danielson E, Perez de Arce K, Park D, Kulesa AB, Wamhoff EC, Blainey PC, Boyden ES, Cottrell JR, Bathe M. Nat Commun. 2019 Sep 26;10(1):4377.

[2] Super-resolution microscopy with DNA-PAINT. Schnitzbauer J, Strauss MT, Schlichthaerle T, Schueder F, Jungmann R. Nat Protoc. 2017 Jun;12(6):1198-1228.

Links:

Schizophrenia (National Institute of Mental Health)

Mark Bathe (Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge)

Jeffrey Cottrell (Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, Cambridge)

Brain Research through Advancing Innovative Neurotechnologies® (BRAIN) Initiative (NIH)

NIH Support: National Institute of Mental Health; National Human Genome Research Institute; National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke; National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences