A drug-controllable tag for visualizing newly synthesized proteins in cells and whole animals.

ABSTRACT: Research on basic cellular processes involving local production or delivery of proteins, such as activity-dependent synaptic modification in neurons, would benefit greatly from a robust, nontoxic method to visualize selectively newly synthesized copies of proteins of interest within cells, tissues, or animals. We report a technique for covalent labeling of newly synthesized proteins of interest based on drug-dependent preservation of epitope tags. Epitope tags are removed from proteins of interest immediately after translation by the activity of a sequence-specific protease until the time a protease inhibitor is added, after which newly synthesized protein copies retain their tags. This method, which we call TimeSTAMP for time-specific tagging for the age measurement of proteins, allows se

SUBMITTER: Lin MZ 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC2402386 | biostudies-literature | 2008 Jun

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature