Fluorescence-Based High-Throughput Screening of Dicer Cleavage Activity

Production of small RNAs by ribonuclease III Dicer is a key step in microRNA and RNA interference pathways, which employ Dicer-produced small RNAs as sequence-specific silencing guides. Further studies and manipulations of microRNA and RNA interference pathways would benefit from identification of small-molecule modulators. Here, we report a study of a fluorescence-based in vitro Dicer cleavage assay, which was adapted for high-throughput screening. The kinetic assay can be performed under single-turnover conditions (35 nM substrate and 70 nM Dicer) in a small volume (5 mu L), which makes it suitable for high-throughput screening in a 1536-well format. As a proof of principle, a small library of bioactive compounds was analyzed, demonstrating potential of the assay.