Super-resolution imaging of a 2.5 kb non-repetitive DNA in situ in the nuclear genome using molecular beacon probes

High-resolution visualization of short non-repetitive DNA in situ in the nuclear genome is essential for studying looping interactions and chromatin organization in single cells. Recent advances in fluorescence in situ hybridization (FISH) using Oligopaints probes enabled super-resolution imaging of genomic domains with a resolution limit of 4.9 kb. To target shorter elements, we developed a simple FISH method that uses only molecular beacon (MB) probes to facilitate the probe-target binding, while minimizing non-specific fluorescence. We used three-dimensional stochastic optical reconstruction microscopy (3D-STORM) and optimized the imaging conditions to efficiently distinguish sparsely distributed Alexa-647 from background cellular autofluorescence. Utilizing 3D-STORM and 29-34 individual MB probes, we observed 3D fine-scale nanostructures of 2.5 kb integrated or endogenous unique DNA in situ in the human or mouse genome, respectively, demonstrating the capability of MB-based FISH in ...