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Techniques for detecting protein-protein interactions in living cells: principles, limitations, and recent progress

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Abstract

Detecting protein-protein interactions (PPIs) provides fundamental information for understanding biochemical processes such as the transduction of signals from one cellular location to another; however, traditional biochemical techniques cannot provide sufficient spatio-temporal information to elucidate these molecular interactions in living cells. Over the past decade, several new techniques have enabled the identification and characterization of PPIs. In this review, we summarize three main techniques for detecting PPIs in vivo, focusing on their basic principles and applications in biological studies. We place a special emphasis on their advantages and limitations, and, in particular, we introduced some uncommon new techniques, such as single-molecule FRET (smFRET), FRET-fluorescence lifetime imaging microscopy (FRET-FLIM), cytoskeleton-based assay for protein-protein interaction (CAPPI) and single-molecule protein proximity index (smPPI), highlighting recent improvements to the established techniques. We hope that this review will provide a valuable reference to enable researchers to select the most appropriate technique for detecting PPIs.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (31530084, 31761133009) and the Programme of Introducing Talents of Discipline to Universities (111 project, B13007).

Author information

Author notes

  1. Contributed equally to this work

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Beijing Advanced Innovation Center for Tree Breeding by Molecular Design, Beijing Forestry University, Beijing, 100083, China

    Yaning Cui, Xi Zhang, Meng Yu & Jinxing Lin

  2. College of Biological Sciences & Biotechnology, Beijing Forestry University, Beijing, 100083, China

    Yaning Cui, Xi Zhang, Meng Yu & Jinxing Lin

  3. Institute of Plant Stress Biology, State Key Laboratory of Cotton Biology, Department of Biology, Henan University, Jinming Street, Kaifeng, 475001, China

    Yingfang Zhu & Jingjing Xing

Authors
  1. Yaning Cui
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  2. Xi Zhang
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  3. Meng Yu
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  4. Yingfang Zhu
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  5. Jingjing Xing
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  6. Jinxing Lin
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Jinxing Lin.

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Cui, Y., Zhang, X., Yu, M. et al. Techniques for detecting protein-protein interactions in living cells: principles, limitations, and recent progress. Sci. China Life Sci. 62, 619–632 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11427-018-9500-7

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11427-018-9500-7

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