Dataset Information

Discovery and characterization of a new cell-penetrating protein.

ABSTRACT: We describe a new cell-penetrating protein, B1, capable of delivering conjugated proteins and nucleic acids into mammalian cells. B1 is a 244-amino-acid product of a single-base frameshift in the gene encoding enhanced green fluorescent protein (eGFP). The molecule has a net positive charge of 43 and a very high charge-to-mass ratio of 1.5. eGFP-fused B1 potently penetrates both adherent and suspension cells with >80% of cells taking up the protein when exposed to concentrations as low as 1 ?M. The protein was found to cluster in the paranuclear region of TZM-bl cells. Most importantly, we show that B1 not only facilitates cellular uptake but allows biomolecular cargo to reach sites of biological relevance. For example, baby hamster kidney cells underwent DNA recombination when exposed to B1-tagged Cre recombinase at protein concentrations as low as 2.5 ?M, indicating potent nuclear delivery of functional protein cargos. Additionally, B1 delivers noncovalently conjugated RNA and DNA across the cell membrane to cytosolic and nuclear sites accessible to the cellular translation and transcription machinery, as gauged by detection of encoded reporter functions, with efficiency comparable to commercially available cationic lipid reagents. B1 appears to utilize cell-surface glycans and multiple competing endocytic pathways to enter and traffic through cells. These studies provide both a new tool for intracellular delivery of biomolecules and insights that could aid in the design of more effective cell penetrating proteins.

SUBMITTER: Simeon RL

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3870027 | biostudies-literature | 2013 Dec

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

ACCESS DATA

Publications

Discovery and characterization of a new cell-penetrating protein.

Simeon Rudo L RL Chamoun Ana Maria AM McMillin Thomas T Chen Zhilei Z

ACS chemical biology 20131007 12

We describe a new cell-penetrating protein, B1, capable of delivering conjugated proteins and nucleic acids into mammalian cells. B1 is a 244-amino-acid product of a single-base frameshift in the gene encoding enhanced green fluorescent protein (eGFP). The molecule has a net positive charge of 43 and a very high charge-to-mass ratio of 1.5. eGFP-fused B1 potently penetrates both adherent and suspension cells with >80% of cells taking up the protein when exposed to concentrations as low as 1 μM. ...[more]

PMID: 24047285

Similar Datasets

Project description:Here we present a protocol to study intracellular protein-protein interactions that is based on the widely used biotin-avidin pull-down system. The modification presented includes the combination of this technique with cell-penetrating sequences. We propose to design cell-penetrating baits that can be incubated with living cells instead of cell lysates and therefore the interactions found will reflect those that occur within the intracellular context. Connexin43 (Cx43), a protein that forms gap junction channels and hemichannels is down-regulated in high-grade gliomas. The Cx43 region comprising amino acids 266-283 is responsible for the inhibition of the oncogenic activity of c-Src in glioma cells. Here we use TAT as the cell-penetrating sequence, biotin as the pull-down tag and the region of Cx43 comprised between amino acids 266-283 as the target to find intracellular interactions in the hard-to-transfect human glioma stem cells. One of the limitations of the proposed method is that the molecule used as bait could fail to fold properly and, consequently, the interactions found could not be associated with the effect. However, this method can be especially interesting for the interactions involved in signal transduction pathways because they are usually carried out by intrinsically disordered regions and, therefore, they do not require an ordered folding. In addition, one of the advantages of the proposed method is that the relevance of each residue on the interaction can be easily studied. This is a modular system; therefore, other cell-penetrating sequences, other tags, and other intracellular targets can be employed. Finally, the scope of this protocol is far beyond protein-protein interaction because this system can be applied to other bioactive cargoes such as RNA sequences, nanoparticles, viruses or any molecule that can be transduced with cell-penetrating sequences and fused to pull-down tags to study their intracellular mechanism of action.

Dataset Information

Discovery and characterization of a new cell-penetrating protein.

Publications

Discovery and characterization of a new cell-penetrating protein.

Similar Datasets

OmicsDI is part of the ELIXIR infrastructure

Tweets