Abstract
The specificity of intracellular signaling and developmental patterning
in biological systems relies on selective interactions between different
proteins in specific cellular compartments. The identification of
such protein-protein interactions is essential for unraveling complex
signaling and regulatory networks. Recently, bimolecular fluorescence
complementation (BiFC) has emerged as a powerful technique for the
efficient detection of protein interactions in their native subcellular
localization. Here we report significant technical advances in the
methodology of plant BiFC. We describe a series of versatile BiFC
vector sets that are fully compatible with previously generated vectors.
The new vectors enable the generation of both C-terminal and N-terminal
fusion proteins and carry optimized fluorescent protein genes that
considerably improve the sensitivity of BiFC. Using these vectors,
we describe a multicolor BiFC (mcBiFC) approach for the simultaneous
visualization of multiple protein interactions in the same cell.
Application to a protein interaction network acting in calcium-mediated
signal transduction revealed the concurrent interaction of the protein
kinase CIPK24 with the calcium sensors CBL1 and CBL10 at the plasma
membrane and tonoplast, respectively. We have also visualized by
mcBiFC the simultaneous formation of CBL1/CIPK1 and CBL9/CIPK1 protein
complexes at the plasma membrane. Thus, mcBiFC provides a useful
new tool for exploring complex regulatory networks in plants.
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