A new approach for extracellular RNA recovery from Rhodovulum sulfidophilum

Abstract

The development of RNA-based drugs is highly pursued due to the possibility of creating viable and effective therapies. However, their translation to clinical practice strongly depends on efficient technologies to produce substantial levels of these biomolecules, with high purity and high quality. RNAs are commonly produced by chemical or enzymatic methods, displaying these limitations. In this sense, recombinant production arises as a promising, cost-effective method, allowing large-scale production of RNA. Rhodovulum sulfidophilum (R. sulfidophilum), a marine purple bacterium, offers the advantage of RNA secretion into the extracellular medium, which contains low levels of RNases and other impurities. Therefore, RNA recovery can be simplified compared to standard extraction protocols involving cell lysis, resulting in a more clarified sample and an improved downstream process. In this work, R. sulfidophilum was transformed with a plasmid DNA encoding pre-miR-29b-1, which is known to be involved in the Alzheimer's disease pathway. After production, the pre-miR-29b-1 was recovered through different extraction methods to verify the most advantageous one. A protocol for extracellular RNA recovery was then established, revealing to be a simpler and less time-consuming method, reducing around 16 h in execution time and the quantity of reagents needed when compared to other established methods. The new strategy brings the additional advantage of eliminating the toxic organic compounds routinely used in intracellular RNA extractions. Overall, the optimized process described here, using isopropanol as the precipitation agent, offers a greener, safer, and faster alternative for recombinant RNA recovery and concentration, with an extracellular RNA recovery of 7 μg/mL and target pre-miRNA-29b-1 recovery of 0.7 μg/L of medium.