Gγ recruitment systems specifically select PPI and affinity-enhanced candidate proteins that interact with membrane protein targets

Screening of protein-based inhibitors for the intracellular domain of epidermal growth factor receptor by directed evolution using the yeast Gγ recruitment system

Protein-based therapeutics, including antibodies and antibody-like-proteins, have increasingly attracted attention due to their high specificity compared to small-molecular drugs. The Gγ recruitment system, one of the in vivo yeast two-hybrid systems for detecting protein-protein interactions, has been previously developed using yeast signal transduction machinery. In this study, we modified the Gγ recruitment system to screen the protein mutants that efficiently bind to the intracellular domain of the epidermal growth factor receptor L858R mutant (cytoEGFRL858R). Using the modified platform, we performed in vivo directed evolution for growth factor receptor-bound protein 2 (Grb2) and its truncated variant containing only the Src-homology 2 (SH2) domain, successfully identifying several mutants that more strongly bound to cytoEGFRL858R than their parental proteins. Some of them contained novel beneficial mutations (F108Y and Q144H) and specifically bound to the recombinant cytosolic phosphorylated EGFR in vitro, highlighting the utility of the evolutionary platform.

Positive Detection of GPCR Antagonists Using a System for Inverted Expression of a Fluorescent Reporter Gene

The yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae is a useful eukaryotic host organism for studying GPCRs as monomolecular models. Fluorescent reporter gene assays for GPCRs provide a convenient assay for measuring receptor activity using fluorometric instruments. Generally, these assays detect receptor activation by agonistic ligands as the induction of fluorescent reporter expression, whereas antagonistic activities are detected by competition with agonistic ligands, resulting in decreases in fluorescence intensity. In the current study, we established a system for inverted expression of a fluorescent reporter by incorporating a PEST-tag and finding out a promoter inhibited by activation of the GPCR signaling pathway from yeast endogenous promoters. Because agonists prevent fluorescent reporter expression in this system, antagonists compete with agonists and yield increased fluorescence intensity. We used the yeast endogenous pheromone receptor as a model GPCR to demonstrate the feasibility of our system for positive detection targeted at antagonists. Compared to results when only agonists were added to yeast cells, more than 10-fold higher fluorescence intensity was observed when antagonists were added in combination with agonists. The approach described here has the potential to markedly accelerate the identification of GPCR antagonists by providing rapid and straightforward responses.

Expression of varied GFPs in Saccharomyces cerevisiae: codon optimization yields stronger than expected expression and fluorescence intensity

Green fluorescent protein (GFP), which was originally isolated from jellyfish, is a widely used tool in biological research, and homologs from other organisms are available. However, researchers must determine which GFP is the most suitable for a specific host. Here, we expressed GFPs from several sources in codon-optimized and non-codon-optimized forms in the yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae, which represents an ideal eukaryotic model. Surprisingly, codon-optimized mWasabi and mNeonGreen, which are typically the brightest GFPs, emitted less green fluorescence than did the other five codon-optimized GFPs tested in S. cerevisiae. Further, commercially available GFPs that have been optimized for mammalian codon usage (e.g., EGFP, AcGFP1 and TagGFP2) unexpectedly exhibited extremely low expression levels in S. cerevisiae. In contrast, codon-optimization of the GFPs for S. cerevisiae markedly increased their expression levels, and the fluorescence intensity of the cells increased by a maximum of 101-fold. Among the tested GFPs, the codon-optimized monomeric mUkG1 from soft coral showed the highest levels of both expression and fluorescence. Finally, the expression of this protein as a fusion-tagged protein successfully improved the reporting system's ability to sense signal transduction and protein-protein interactions in S. cerevisiae and increased the detection rates of target cells using flow cytometry.