Determination of Intracellular Condensates by Inducing of Dimerization and Oligomerization

Oligomeric proteins represent an important part of the cellular proteome in all three domains of life. Protein oligomerization is a mechanism by which homogeneous solutions can be separated into distinct liquid phases, enabling the assembly of membraneless organelles. Several key proteins in membraneless organelles have folded dimerized or oligomerized structural domains. Protein oligomerization offers several functional advantages, the most important of which is the potential to form novel multivalent interaction surfaces that are not present in monomers. Thus, oligomerization can alter protein stability, enzymatic activity and metastable interactions. Scientists have successfully developed iPOLYMER strategies to achieve controlled induction of protein-based hydrogel formation in living cells.

Fig. 1. Schematic illustration of iPOLYMER and in silico analysis on network formation. (Nakamura H, et al., 2018)

Customized Services

Inducing protein dimerization and oligomerization is an effective method for generating intracellular assemblies of biomolecular condensates. Non-genetic engineering strategies have received much attention for their ability to modulate endogenous proteins without disturbing their natural structure and function. Here, CD BioSciences is committed to developing strategies to regulate protein dimerization and oligomerization to induce intracellular liquid-liquid phase separation (LLPS) to further determine the material properties of condensates. We offer the following non-genetic strategies to precisely regulate protein dimerization and oligomerization.

• DNA-based strategies, such as aptamers and DNA origami.
• Protein-based strategies, such as antibodies and peptides as recognition units to induce or inhibit oligomerization of receptors.
• Small-molecules based strategies. We use small molecules to form multivalent ligands, which provide an efficient way to induce receptor oligomerization.
• Physical stimuli-based strategies. In addition to the chemical or biomolecular-based strategies described above, a number of physical factors can also be used as methods to regulate protein oligomerization. We offer a variety of physical stimuli-based regulatory strategies, including magnetic fields, temperature and light.

Quantification of protein oligomerization in the cellular environment helps us to understand complex biological processes in detail. One important parameter is molecular brightness, which serves as a direct measure of oligomerization reactions and can be easily extracted from temporal or spatial fluorescence fluctuations. CD BioSciences offers fluorescence fluctuation spectroscopy techniques for quantifying protein dimerization and oligomerization in living cells. We typically fuse the protein gene of interest into a fluorescent protein (FP) to directly probe protein oligomerization in living cells and determine molecular brightness.

Advantages of Our Services

• A variety of general and efficient protein oligomerization modulation strategies are available.
• Facilitating the assembly of intracellular biomolecular condensates.
• Molecular brightness is used as a measure of the oligomerization of fluorescently labeled proteins.
• Measuring protein dynamics, interactions and oligomerization directly in living cells and organisms.

Our expert team carefully analyzes the data obtained with dimerization and oligomerization induced LLPS. We perform quantitative measurements of proteins in the endogenous state and physiological abundance to analyze the causality and function of LLPS in vivo. Our service can provide guidance to improve consistency between in vitro and in vivo studies and to explore the role of proteins in LLPS. If you have any special requirements for our services, please feel free to contact us. We are looking forward to working together with your attractive projects.