RT Journal Article
SR Electronic
T1 Synthetic miR-16-5p does not act as a reverse transcriptase co-factor to enhance detection of small RNA
JF bioRxiv
FD Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory
SP 047001
DO 10.1101/047001
A1 Melissa A. McAlexander
A1 Kenneth W. Witwer
YR 2016
UL http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2016/04/04/047001.abstract
AB Failure to detect low-abundance microRNAs (miRNAs), for example, in circulating plasma, may occur for a variety of reasons, including presence of enzyme inhibitors. Recently, we received the unusual but intriguing suggestion that miR-16-5p acts as a co-factor of reverse transcriptases, facilitating more efficient reverse transcription of miRNAs and thus enhanced detection of low-abundance miRNAs. We tested this hypothesis by incubating reverse transcriptase with several concentrations of synthetic miR-16-5p and then performing stem-loop RT-qPCR with serial dilutions of miRNA osa-MIR168a. Our results do not support a role for miR-16 as a co-factor of reverse transcriptase.