该方案是使用 体外 全内部荧光(TIRF)显微镜测定可视化动态肌动蛋白和微管的指南。
传统上,肌动蛋白和微管细胞骨架已被研究为独立的实体,仅限于特定的细胞区域或过程,并由每种聚合物独特的不同结合蛋白套件调节。现在许多研究表明,两种细胞骨架聚合物的动力学是相互交织在一起的,并且这种串扰是大多数细胞行为所必需的。已经鉴定出许多参与肌动蛋白 – 微管相互作用的蛋白质(即Tau,MACF,GAS,formins等),并且仅就肌动蛋白或微管具有良好的表征。然而,相对较少的研究表明,肌动蛋白- 微管与两种聚合物的动态版本的配位测定。这可能会阻塞肌动蛋白和微管之间的紧急连接机制。在这里,基于全内反射荧光(TIRF)显微镜 的体外 重构技术允许从一种生化反应中可视化肌动蛋白和微管动力学。该技术单独或在另一种聚合物存在下保留了肌动蛋白丝或微管的聚合动力学。市售的Tau蛋白用于证明在经典细胞骨架交联蛋白存在下肌动蛋白 – 微管行为如何变化。这种方法可以为单个调节蛋白如何在单丝或高阶复合物的分辨率下协调肌动蛋白 – 微管动力学提供可靠的功能和机制见解。
从历史上看,肌动蛋白和微管被视为独立的实体,每个实体都有自己的一组调节蛋白,动力学行为和不同的细胞位置。现在有大量证据表明,肌动蛋白和微管聚合物具有功能性串扰机制,这些机制对于执行许多细胞过程至关重要,包括迁移,有丝分裂纺锤体定位,细胞内运输和细胞形态学1,2,3,4。这些例子背后的各种协调行为依赖于耦合因子、信号和物理属性的复杂平衡。然而,支持这些机制的分子细节在很大程度上仍然是未知的,因为大多数研究都集中在一次1,2,5的单个细胞骨架聚合物上。
肌动蛋白和微管不直接相互作用6,7,8。在细胞中看到的肌动蛋白和微管的协调动力学是由其他因素介导的。已经鉴定出许多被认为调节肌动蛋白 – 微管串扰的蛋白质,并且它们的活性在单独的细胞骨架聚合物方面都有很好的表征1,2。越来越多的证据表明,这种单一聚合物方法掩盖了一些蛋白质/复合物的双重功能,这些蛋白质/复合物使肌动蛋白 – 微管偶联事件7,8,9,10,11,12,13。两种聚合物都存在的实验是罕见的,并且通常使用单个动态聚合物和另一种6,8,9,10,11,14,15,16,17,18的静态稳定版本来定义机理.因此,需要一些方法来研究肌动蛋白 – 微管配位蛋白的涌现特性,这些特性可能只有在同时使用两种动态聚合物的实验系统中才能完全理解。
直接蛋白质标记方法,遗传编码亲和力标签和全内反射荧光(TIRF)显微镜的组合已在仿生重建系统19,20,21,22,23中取得了巨大成功。许多自下而上的方案并不包含调节细胞中蛋白质的所有因素。然而,“盖玻片上的生物化学”技术在高空间和时间尺度上完善了肌动蛋白和微管动力学的许多机制,包括聚合物组装或拆卸所需的组件,以及运动蛋白运动5,12,23,24,25,26,27.这里描述了一种在体外研究肌动蛋白-微管偶联的最小组分单丝方法。该方案可与市售或高纯度纯化蛋白、荧光标记蛋白、灌注室一起使用,并扩展到包含细胞提取物或合成系统的更复杂的方案。在这里,市售的Tau蛋白用于证明在肌动蛋白 – 微管偶联蛋白存在下细胞骨架动力学如何变化,但可以替代其他推定的肌动蛋白 – 微管配位因子。与其他方法相比,该系统的主要优点是能够在一次反应中同时监测多个细胞骨架聚合物的动力学。该协议还为用户提供了示例和简单的工具,以量化细胞骨架聚合物的变化。因此,实验方案用户将产生可靠、定量的单丝分辨率数据,以描述各种调节蛋白如何协调肌动蛋白微管动力学的机制。
使用全内反射荧光(TIRF)显微镜可视化纯化蛋白质一直是剖析细胞骨架调节的独特机制的一种富有成效且令人信服的方法5,23,24,25,26,27,35。与传统的生化测定相比,TIRF反应需要非常小的体积(50-100μL),并且可以从单个测定中收集细胞骨架动力学的定量测量。大多数细胞骨架动力学研究集中在单个聚合物系统(即肌动蛋白丝或微管)上,因此对通常在细胞中看到的肌动蛋白丝和微管之间的串扰或涌现行为的详细测量仍然难以捉摸并且难以在试管中重述。为了解决这个问题,该协议描述了一种单丝TIRF显微镜系统,该系统能够在同一生化反应中直接可视化动态肌动蛋白和微管聚合物。因此,该方法超越了传统的测定,后者仅重述肌动蛋白丝或微管的动态行为。该技术也以Tau为例,说明在存在细胞骨架耦合因子的情况下,几种动态性质如何变化。该协议可以与已知或怀疑的其他蛋白质一起使用,以协调肌动蛋白或微管动力学,包括(但不限于)MACF,GAS,formins等。最后,提供的示例分析可以用作量化使用该协议获取的数据的指南。
“眼见为实”是进行基于显微镜的测定的令人信服的理由。然而,在执行和解释TIRF显微镜实验时需要谨慎。细胞骨架共组装测定的一个主要挑战是许多常用的成像条件与每种聚合物不相容。微管和肌动蛋白通常具有不同的缓冲液、温度、盐、核苷酸和聚合浓度要求。肌动蛋白、微管蛋白、靶向调节蛋白和本方案中使用的缓冲液对冻融循环敏感。因此,仔细处理蛋白质和缓冲液对于成功执行该协议是必要的。为了缓解许多这些问题,强烈建议使用新鲜回收的微管蛋白(冷冻<6周),并通过超速离心预先清除冷冻/重悬的肌动蛋白。这些考虑因素也适用于使用该程序评估的无数调节蛋白,这些调节蛋白可能对冻融循环或缓冲盐浓度5,11,36敏感。
不幸的是,没有一个没有实验权衡的一刀切的缓冲区。为了为较低浓度的蛋白质适当更多的体积,可以在2x TIRF缓冲溶液中包含ATP和GTP(图1C)。然而,由于这些核苷酸对冻融循环极其敏感,因此不推荐使用。这里使用的除氧化合物(即过氧化氢酶和葡萄糖氧化酶)对于长时间(几分钟到几小时)可视化蛋白质是必要的,但已知会限制高浓度下的微管聚合5。与这些缓冲液考虑因素相关,该协议的局限性在于,一些规范的微管相关调节蛋白可能需要或多或少的盐来概括细胞中发现的功能或仅使用微管(不含肌动蛋白)的测定。改变盐的性质或浓度以解决这些问题可能会影响肌动蛋白丝聚合速率和/或微管动力学参数。需要测量多个描述性参数(最小、成核、伸长率和稳定性)(图 3)以确认方案成功或明确记录特定缓冲液或调节蛋白的作用。例如,过多的肌动蛋白细丝聚合会在几秒钟内掩盖肌动蛋白-微管偶联事件。因此,通过降低肌动蛋白的总浓度或包括抑制肌动蛋白成核的额外蛋白质(即profilin)来微调实验条件将延长可以清楚地看到协调的肌动蛋白 – 微管活性的总时间。满足这些先决条件的控制措施和技术重复(超越多个视野)对于用户产生可靠且可重复的结果至关重要。
基于细胞的研究为观察直接蛋白质 – 蛋白质关系或调节复合物的作用提供了有限的机会。相比之下,从 体外测定中 收集的一些机制并不总是反映细胞中观察到的蛋白质的确切行为。这种经典的生物化学困境可以通过特定的修改在该技术的未来应用中得到解决。例如,添加功能性荧光标记的偶联蛋白将这种方法从单丝研究扩展到单分子 研究。可以进一步修改测定以使用细胞提取物,这些细胞提取物可能添加“缺失的”未知关键因子,以概括细胞样现象。例如,基于TIRF的测定采用酵母或非洲爪蟾提取物,具有重组收缩肌动蛋白环37,有丝分裂纺锤体26,38,肌动蛋白或微管组装的组分39,40,甚至在中心体和运动管36,41,42,43处的动力学.此外,这样的系统可能为具有脂质或信号因子的人造细胞系统铺平道路,这些系统存在44,45,46。
The authors have nothing to disclose.
我感谢Marc Ridilla(Repair Biotechnologies)和Brian Haarer(SUNY Upstate)对该协议的有用评论。这项工作得到了美国国立卫生研究院(GM133485)的支持。
1% BSA (w/v) | Fisher Scientific | BP1600-100 | For this purpose (blocking TIRF chambers), BSA is resuspended in ddH20 and filtered through a 0.22 µm filter. |
1× BRB80 | Homemade | 80 mM PIPES, 1 mM MgCl2, 1 mM EGTA, pH 6.8 with KOH | |
10 mg/mL (1000 U) glucose oxidase | Sigma Aldrich Inc, St. Louis, MO | G2133-50KU | Combined with catalase, aliquot and store at -80 oC until use |
100 µM tubulin | Cytoskeleton Inc, Denver, CO | T240 | Homemade tubulins should be recycled before use to remove polymerization-incompetent tubulin (Hyman et al. (1992)29; Li and Moore (2020)30). Commercially available tubulins are often too dilute to recycle, but function well if resuspended according to manufacturer’s instructions and pre-cleared via ultracentrifugation (278,000 × g) for 60 min, before use. |
100 mM ATP | Gold Biotechnology Inc, Olivette, MO | A-081 | Resuspended in ddH20 (pH 7.5) and filter sterilized. |
100 mM GTP | Fisher Scientific | AC226250010 | Resuspended in 1× BRB80 (pH 6.8) and filter sterilized. |
120-150 mW solid-state lasers | Leica Microsystems | 11889151; 11889148 | |
2 mg/mL catalase | Sigma Aldrich Inc, St. Louis, MO | C40-100 | Combined with glucose oxidase, aliquot and store at -80 oC until use |
2× TIRF buffer | Homemade | 2× BRB80, 100 mM KCl, 20 mM DTT, 80 mM glucose, 0.5% (v/v) methylcellulose (4,000 cp); Note: 1 µL of 0.1M GTP and 1 µL of 0.1M ATP added separately to TIRF reactions to avoid repeated freeze-thaw cycles. | |
24 × 60 mm, #1.5 coverglass | Fisher Scientific, Waltham, MA | 22-266882 | Coverglass must be extensively washed before use (Smith et al. (2014)22) |
37 oC heatblock | |||
37 oC water bath | |||
5 mg/mL Streptavidin (600x stock) | Avantor, Philadelphia, PA | RLS000-01 | Resuspended in Tris-HCl (pH 8.8); dilute the aliquot to 1× in HEK buffer on day of use |
5 min Epoxy resin and hardener | Loctite, Rocky Hill, CT | 1365736 | Combined resin and hardener may take up to 30 min to cure. |
50% biotinylated-GpCpp microtubule seeds | Cytoskeleton Inc; Homemade | T333P | (optional) GppCpp or Taxol stabilized microtubule seeds can more efficiently mediate microtubule polymerization. Taxol and GppCpp stabilize microtubules in different ways that can affect the microtubule lattice structure and ability of certain regulatory proteins to bind to the stabilized portion of the microtubule. A method to make diverse kinds of microtubule seeds is outlined in Hyman et al. (1992). |
70 oC incubator | |||
Actin mix stock | Homemade; this protocol | A 12.5 µM actin mix comprised of labeled (fluorescent and biotinylated) and unlabeled actin for up to six reactions. 2 µL of stock is used in the final TIRF reaction. The final concentration of actin used in each reaction is 0.5 µM (10% Alexa-647; 0.09% biotin-labeled). | |
Appropriate buffer controls | Homemade | Combination of buffers from all proteins being assessed | |
Biotin-PEG-silane (MW 3,400) | Laysan Bio Inc | biotin-PEG-SIL-3400 | Dispensed into 2-5 mg aliquots, backfilled with nitrogen, parafilmed closed, and stored at -20 oC with desiccant until use |
Biotinylated actin | Cytoskeleton Inc; Homemade | AB07 | Biotin-actin is made by labeling on lysine residues and thus assumed to be at least 100% labeled, but varies with different lots/preparations. Optimal biotinylated actin concentrations must be empirically determined for particular uses/experimental designs. Higher concentrations permit more efficient tracking, but may impede polymerization or interactions with regulatory proteins. Here a small percentage (0.09% or 900 pM) biotinylated actin is present in the final TIRF reaction. |
Dishsoap | Dawn, Procter and Gamble, Cincinnati, OH | For unknown reasons, the blue version cleans coverslips more efficiently than other available colors. | |
Dry ice | |||
FIJI Software | www.https://imagej.net/software/fiji/downloads | Schneider et al. (2012)31. | |
Fluorescently labeled actin | Cytoskeleton Inc; Homemade | AR05 | Homemade fluorescently labeled actin is stored in G-buffer supplemented with 50% glycerol at -20 oC (Spudich et al. (1971)47; Liu et al. (2022)48). Fluorescently labeled actin is dialyzed against G-buffer and precleared via ultracentrifugation for 60 min at 278,000 × g before use. |
Fluorescently labeled tubulin | Cytoskeleton Inc | TL488M, TLA590M, TL670M | Resuspended in 20 µL 1× BRB80 (10 µM final concentration) and pre-cleared via ultracentrifugation (278,000 × g) for 60 min, before use. |
G-buffer | Homemade | 3 mM Tris-HCl (pH 8.0), 0.2 mM CaCl2, 0.5 mM DTT, 0.2 mM ATP | |
HEK Buffer | Homemade | 20 mM HEPES (pH 7.5), 1 mM EDTA (pH 8.0), 50 mM KCl | |
Ice | |||
Ice bucket | |||
Imaging chambers | IBIDI, Fitchburg, WI | 80666 | Order chambers with no bottom to utilize different coverslip coatings |
iXon Life 897 EMCCD camera | Andor, Belfast, Northern Ireland | 8114137 | |
LASX Premium microscope software | Leica Microsystems | 11640611 | |
Methylcellulose (4,000 cp) | Sigma Aldrich Inc | M0512 | |
Microscope base equipped with TIRF module | Leica Microsystems, Wetzlar, Germany | 11889146 | |
mPEG-silane (MW 2,000) | Laysan Bio Inc, Arab, AL | mPEG-SIL-2000 | Dispensed into 10-15 mg aliquots, backfilled with nitrogen, parafilmed closed, and stored at -20 oC with desiccant until use |
Objective heater and heated stage insert | OKO labs, Pozzioli, Italy | 8113569 | Set temperature controls to 35-37 oC. Use manufacturer suggestions for accurate calibration. |
Perfusion pump | Harvard Apparatus, Holliston, MA | 704504 | A syringe and tubing can be substituted. |
Petri Dish, 100 x 15 mm | Genesee Scientific, San Diego, CA | 32-107 | |
Plastic slide mailer container | Fisher Scientific | HS15986 | |
SA-S-1L-SecureSeal 0.12 mm thick | Grace Biolabs, Bend, OR | 620001 | Double-sided tape of precise manufactured dimensions is strongly recommended. |
Small styrofoam container | Abcam, Cambridge, UK | Reused from shipping | |
Small weigh boat | Fisher Scientific | 02-202-100 | |
Spectrophotometer | |||
Tau | Cytoskeleton Inc | TA01 | Three isoforms of Tau are present in the commercially available preparation of Tau. The concentration in this protocol was determined from the highest molecular weight band (14.3 µM, when resuspended per manufacturer’s recommendations with 50 µL of ddH20). |
Temperature corrected 63× Plan Apo 1.47 N.A. oil immersion TIRF objective | Leica Microsystems | 11506319 | |
Tubulin stock | Homemade; this protocol | A tubulin stock consisting of 7.2 µL recycled 100 µM unlabeled tubulin and 3 µL of 10 µM resuspended commercially available fluorescently labeled tubulin. One tubulin stock is used per reaction and thawed/stored on ice. The final concentration of free tubulin in each reaction is 15 µM (4% labeled). More than 15 µM tubulin will result in hyperstabilized (not dynamic) microtubules, whereas concentrations below 7.5 µM free tubulin do not polymerize well. Careful determination of protein concentration and handling is required. | |
Unlabeled actin (dark) | Cytoskeleton Inc; Homemade | AKL99 | Actin nucleates are almost always present in commercially available (lyophilized) or frozen actins and contribute to variability in quantitative measurements (Spudich et al. (1971)47; Liu et al. (2022)48). Rabbit muscle actin is stored in G-buffer at -80 oC and precleared via ultracentrifugation for 60 min at 278,000 × g before use. Several actin stock solutions are made throughout the day (making no more than enough for six reactions at a time is strongly recommended). |