Synthesis of ¹⁸O-labeled RNA for application to kinetic studies and imaging.

Radioisotopes and fluorescent compounds are frequently used for RNA labeling but are unsuitable for clinical studies of RNA drugs because of the risk from radiation exposure or the nonequivalence arising from covalently attached fluorophores. Here, we report a practical phosphoramidite solid-phase synthesis of (18)O-labeled RNA that avoids these disadvantages, and we demonstrate its application to quantification and imaging. The synthesis involves the introduction of a nonbridging (18)O atom into the phosphate group during the oxidation step of the synthetic cycle by using (18)O water as the oxygen donor.

Acetylation of lysine 564 adjacent to the C-terminal binding protein-binding motif in EVI1 is crucial for transcriptional activation of GATA2.

Ecotropic viral integration site 1 (EVI1) is an important transcription factor for leukemogenesis. EVI1 is a member of a group of transcription factors with C-terminal binding protein (CtBP)-binding motifs that act as transcriptional co-repressors; however, we recently found that EVI1 directly activates GATA2 transcription, which is an important gene for the maintenance of hematopoietic stem cells. We show here that EVI1-activated GATA2 transcripts derive from exon 1S of GATA2, which is specifically activated in neural and hematopoietic cells.