Rapamycin's sister

Miyamoto, T. et al. Nat. Chem. Biol. 8, 465–470 (2012).

Rapamycin is the most commonly used agent for chemically induced dimerization of fusion proteins. Since its discovery, there has been interest in finding other molecules applicable in alternative chemical dimerization systems for orthogonal use with rapamycin. Miyamoto et al. recently found one such molecule, GA₃, among the family of plant gibberellin hormones. The authors optimized GA₃ for cellular uptake and fused target proteins to GA₃'s receptor, GID1, and its interacting partner GAI. The gibberellin system acts on a timescale of seconds and, in combination with rapamycin-based protein control, can be used to generate intersectional gates in cells.