Letter abstract
Nature Chemical Biology 3, 50 - 54 (2006)
Published online: 26 November 2006 | doi:10.1038/nchembio832
Post-translational enzyme activation in an animal via optimized conditional protein splicing
Edmund C Schwartz1, Lino Saez2, Michael W Young2 & Tom W Muir1
Control over the timing, location and level of protein activity in vivo is crucial to understanding biological function1. Living systems are able to respond to external and internal stimuli rapidly and in a graded fashion by maintaining a pool of proteins whose activities are altered through post-translational modifications2. Here we show that the process of protein trans-splicing3 can be used to modulate enzymatic activity both in cultured cells and in Drosophila melanogaster. We used an optimized conditional protein splicing4 system to rapidly trigger the in vivo ligation of two inactive fragments of firefly luciferase in a tunable manner. This technique provides a means of controlling enzymatic function with greater speed and precision than with standard genetic techniques and is a useful tool for probing biological processes.
- Laboratory of Synthetic Protein Chemistry, The Rockefeller University, 1230 York Avenue, New York, New York 10021, USA.
- Laboratory of Genetics, The Rockefeller University, 1230 York Avenue, New York, New York 10021, USA.
Correspondence to: Tom W Muir1 e-mail: muirt@rockefeller.edu
