期刊名称:Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
印刷版ISSN:0027-8424
电子版ISSN:1091-6490
出版年度:2008
卷号:105
期号:41
页码:15932-15937
DOI:10.1073/pnas.0801075105
语种:English
出版社:The National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America
摘要:Full understanding of the functional complexity of the protein interactome requires mapping of biomolecular complexes within the cellular environment over biologically relevant time scales. New approaches to imaging interacting protein partners in vivo will allow the study of functional proteomics of human biology and disease within the context of living animals. Herein, we describe a universal transgenic reporter mouse strain that expresses firefly luciferase (Fluc) under the regulatory control of a concatenated Gal4 promoter (TgG4F(+/-)). Using an adenovirus to deliver a fused binding-domain-activator chimera (Gal4BD-VP16), induction of bioluminescence in TgG4F(+/-) tissues of up to 4 orders of magnitude was observed in fibroblasts, liver, respiratory epithelia, muscle, and brain. The TgG4F(+/-) reporter strain allowed noninvasive detection of viral infectivity, duration of the infection as well as viral clearance in various tissues in vivo. To demonstrate protein-protein interactions in live mice, the well characterized interaction between tumor suppressor p53 (fused to Gal4BD) and large T antigen (TAg) (fused to VP16) was visualized in vivo by using a two-hybrid strategy. Hepatocytes of TgG4F(+/-) mice transfected with p53/TAg demonstrated 48-fold greater induction of Fluc expression in vivo than noninteracting pairs. Furthermore, to demonstrate the feasibility of monitoring experimental therapy with siRNA in vivo, targeted knockdown of p53 resulted in markedly reduced light output, whereas use of a control siRNA had no effect on protein interaction-dependent induction of Fluc. Thus, this highly inducible Gal4[->]Fluc conditional reporter strain should facilitate imaging studies of protein interactions, signaling cascades, viral dissemination, and therapy within the physiological context of the whole animal.