Fluorescence Anisotropy as a Tool to Study Protein-protein Interactions

Cells contain a multitude of biomacromolecules that constantly interact with each other. This association gives rise to complexes that participate in the cellular pathways responsible for their functioning in signal transduction, regulation of gene expression and cell migration amongst others. All protein-protein interactions that occur in a cell comprise a network known as the interactome. In Saccharomyces cerevisiae more than 70% of its proteins have been shown to have interacting partners ¹. Understanding the interactome of a cell and their functions provide relevant information on the complexity and diversity of living organisms. Several methodologies have been described to identify and characterize protein-protein interactions. Different high through put methods such as yeast two-hybrid ², protein-fragment complementation assays ³, affinity purification ⁴ coupled to mass spectrometry and protein microarrays are used to identify an interaction ^5,6. Once identified, it is necessary to validate it and this may vary on a case-by-case basis. Typically, these experiments involve disrupting the interaction itself at the level of the individual members of the interaction pair, e.g., by gene deletion or overexpression of one of the proteins, and then looking for changes in the properties or function of the other member at the cellular level. Subsequently, biophysical techniques ⁷ are used to characterize the protein-protein interaction at the molecular level. To this end, the structure of protein complexes are determined by X-ray crystallography, nuclear magnetic resonance and cryo-electron microscopy while calorimetry and fluorescence spectroscopy are used to quantitatively and mechanistically describe them.

In this work, fluorescence anisotropy was used as a technique to characterize the interaction between the GTPase EFL1 and the SBDS protein. These proteins participate in the synthesis of ribosomes by promoting the release of eukaryotic initiation factor 6 from the surface of the 60S ribosomal subunit ⁸. The SBDS protein is mutated in a disease known as the Shwachman-Diamond Syndrome ⁹ and acts as a guanine nucleotide exchange factor for EFL1 decreasing its affinity for guanosine diphosphate ^10,11. Disease mutations in SBDS abolish the interaction with EFL1 and thus prevent its activation.

Fluorescence anisotropy is commonly used in biological applications to study protein-peptide or protein-nucleic acid interactions. It is based on the principle that a fluorophore excited with polarized light results in a partially polarized emission. Fluorescence anisotropy is defined by Equation 1:

where I_VV and I_VH are the fluorescence intensities of the vertically (_VV) and horizontally (_VH) polarized emission when the sample is excited with vertically polarized light ¹². Fluorescence anisotropy is sensitive to factors that affect the rate of the rotational diffusion of the fluorophore and thus depends on the temperature, the viscosity of the solution and the apparent molecular size of the fluorophore. The apparent size of a protein containing a fluorophore increases when it interacts with another protein and such change can then be evaluated as a change in anisotropy. More specifically, a fluorophore that rotates slowly in solution relative to its fluorescent lifetime will have a large I_VV value and small I_VH value and therefore will exhibit a relatively large anisotropy. For fluorophores that tumble rapidly relative to their fluorescent lifetime, I_VV and I_VH will be similar and their anisotropy value will be small ¹² (Figure 1). In addition, for a good anisotropy signal to noise measurement, it is necessary to have a fluorophore with a fluorescence lifetime similar to the rotational correlation time of the molecule of interest. Otherwise, it is not possible to accurately record the difference in anisotropy between the free protein and that in the complex. For example, the anisotropy of a fluorescent probe with a lifetime close to 4 nsec such as fluorescein or rhodamine attached to a low molecular weight compound of 100 Da is 0.05. Binding to a molecule of 160 kDa will increase its anisotropy value to 0.29; a difference that can be accurately measured. In contrast, the same fluorescent probe involved in a binding reaction whose increase in molecular size varies from 65 to 1,000 kDa will only result in an anisotropy change of 0.28 to 0.3, which is too small to be accurately measured. In this scenario, a probe with a lifetime of 400 nsec would be more suitable ¹².

Figure 1. Schematic representation of the equipment used to measure fluorescence anisotropy and the procedure. Schematic representation of the equipment used to perform a protein-protein interaction experiment measuring fluorescence anisotropy. Fluorophores that tumble fast display small anisotropy that increases upon binding to an interaction partner. Please click here to view a larger version of this figure.

Fluorescence applications require the presence of a fluorophore in any of the molecules studied. To study protein-protein interactions there are three type of fluorophores: 1) the tryptophan residues present in the proteins, 2) chemically attached fluorophores and 3) fluorescent fusion partners such as green fluorescent protein (GFP) and its derivatives. Most proteins have tryptophan residues on its structure, thus the easiest way to measure an interaction is by monitoring the changes in the corresponding fluorescence spectra or by monitoring changes in the fluorescence intensity of the tryptophan residues. However, tryptophan residues may be present in both proteins complicating the analysis. On the other hand, for a fluorophore to change its fluorescent properties due to an interaction it needs to be located on or near the binding site and it could interfere with the interaction itself. This needs special attention when using bulky fluorophores such as GFP. If none of these fluorophores can be used for binding studies it is necessary, then, to introduce extrinsic fluorophores to the one of the proteins involved. Many chemically synthesized fluorophores exist and can be covalently attached to proteins through their reactive groups such as the amine groups (side chain of lysines or N-terminus) and the thiol groups in cysteine. Fluorophore derivatives with isothiocyanate and succinimidyl esters react with amide groups while iodoacetamide and maleimide are thiol-reactive groups ¹³. The most common dyes used in fluorescence applications are derivatives of the fluorescein and the rhodamine green dyes, coumarins, BODIPY fluorophores and Alexa Fluor dyes. A detailed list of commercially available fluorophores and their use can be found in references ^14,15. For successful labeling, the reactive group must be exposed on the surface of the protein, but due to the large number of reactive functional groups typically present in polypeptides it is very hard to get site-specific modification. The protein of interest in this study, SBDS, contains 5 free cysteines and 33 lysines that may result in multiple site labeling. Non-uniform labeling may affect the binding and will complicate data analysis as different fluorophore molecules may elicit different fluorescent intensity signals upon binding. To overcome this problem, we used the FlAsH fluorophore, 4',5'-bis(1,3,2 dithioarsolan-2-yl) fluorescein to site-direct label the SBDS protein. This is an arsenoxide dye with a high affinity for four spaced cysteines in a motif know as FlAsH-tag consisting of the sequence CCXXCC where X is any amino acid other than cysteine ^16,17. This tetracysteine motif is added to the N- or C-terminus of the protein by genetic engineering together with an appropriate linker to prevent the disruption of the overall fold of the protein. The pair consisting of FlAsH dye and FlAsH-tag was originally designed to site-specific label proteins in living cells ¹⁷ but it can also be used to label purified proteins in vitro as it is exemplified here. Additionally, enzymatic strategies have also been developed to enable site-specific functionalization of proteins ¹⁸.

In this manuscript we describe the usefulness of fluorescence anisotropy as a tool to study protein-protein interactions. Binding can be assessed by simple inspection of the binding curve shape while quantitative information can be obtained from the fit of the experimental data.