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Chemical biology

Fluorogenic chemically induced dimerization

Nature Methods volume 20, pages 1454–1455 (2023)Cite this article

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A new chemically induced dimerization (CID) pair exhibits fluorescence upon dimerization for the first time. Moreover, the CID pair is small and offers easily reversible dimerization that can be repeated multiple times.

Temporally gated protein proximity induction via protein dimerization provides an important approach to manipulate cellular processes. While light-gated protein dimerization1 is advantageous because of its fast on/off kinetics, spatial control and the ability to be repeatedly reversible, it is limited by poor light penetration in tissues. In contrast, CID provides the advantage that chemicals can easily access deep tissues. Therefore, many CID pairs have been designed and applied in various biological processes2, including rapamycin (or rapalog)-induced FKBP–FRB, abscisic acid-induced ABI1–Pyl and gibberellin-induced GID1–GAI. However, most existing CID methods have slow off-kinetics or are not easily reversible or repeatedly reversible.

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Fig. 1: Scheme of CATCHFIRE design and applications.

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Acknowledgements

W.W and J.S. are supported by the University of Michigan and National Institutes of Health grant DP2MH132939.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Life Sciences Institute, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, USA

    Wenjing Wang & Jiaqi Shen

  2. Department of Chemistry, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, USA

    Wenjing Wang & Jiaqi Shen

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  1. Wenjing Wang
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  2. Jiaqi Shen
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Correspondence to Wenjing Wang.

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The authors declare no competing interests.

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Wang, W., Shen, J. Fluorogenic chemically induced dimerization. Nat Methods 20, 1454–1455 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41592-023-01989-7

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