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Introduction

A common strategy for investigating molecular and cellular biological questions is the use of fusion proteins and to control the functions of these proteins in a spatial and temporal manner. Instead of manipulating proteins on the genomic level, we aimed at editing proteins post-translationally. By using our intein toolbox, one is able to fuse proteins and/or protein tags(Link), as well as reconstitute the function by complementing two formerly split halves of a single protein, and thereby recreate the function of the protein. Mechanistically, the reconstitution of split proteins is identical with the fusion of different proteins to their tags.

To demonstrate the restoration of function of a formerly split protein, we choose a set of fluorescent proteins, whose function can, when properly reassembled, easily be read out using their florescence. Split fluorescent proteins are rarely used in the context of intein splicing. However they are widely applied in bimolecular fluorescence complementation (BiFC) assays [1]. This approach is based on the complementation between fragments of fluorescent proteins that reconstitute its fluorescence when brought into proximity by associated interacting proteins.

Methods

Selection of Split Sites

For each of the fluorescent proteins, we selected split sites according to previous published research. Additionally to fluorescent proteins we choose to create two versions of split luciferases. A list of all designed constructs are depicted in the following table:

conditions testing

Results

Discussion

Outlook

References