Single-Cell Quantification of Protein Degradation Rates by Time-Lapse Fluorescence Microscopy in Adherent Cell Culture

Summary

This protocol describes a method to determine protein half-lives in single living adherent cells, using pulse labeling and fluorescence time-lapse imaging of SNAP-tag fusion proteins.

Abstract

Proteins are in a dynamic state of synthesis and degradation and their half-lives can be adjusted under various circumstances. However, most commonly used approaches to determine protein half-life are either limited to population averages from lysed cells or require the use of protein synthesis inhibitors. This protocol describes a method to measure protein half-lives in single living adherent cells, using SNAP-tag fusion proteins in combination with fluorescence time-lapse microscopy. Any protein of interest fused to a SNAP-tag can be covalently bound by a fluorescent, cell permeable dye that is coupled to a benzylguanine derivative, and the decay of the labeled protein population can be monitored after washout of the residual dye. Subsequent cell tracking and quantification of the integrated fluorescence intensity over time results in an exponential decay curve for each tracked cell, allowing for determining protein degradation rates in single cells by curve fitting. This method provides an estimate for the heterogeneity of half-lives in a population of cultured cells, which cannot easily be assessed by other methods. The approach presented here is applicable to any type of cultured adherent cells expressing a protein of interest fused to a SNAP-tag. Here we use mouse embryonic stem (ES) cells grown on E-cadherin-coated cell culture plates to illustrate how single cell degradation rates of proteins with a broad range of half-lives can be determined.

Introduction

It is well known that cellular proteins undergo extensive turnover, with synthesis and degradation rates being specific for each protein and subject to physiological regulation. Traditionally, protein degradation rates have been measured using bulk methods, such as radioactive pulse chase analysis, or involving protein synthesis inhibitors such as cycloheximide¹. More recently, stable isotope labeling with amino acids in cell culture (SILAC) in combination with mass spectrometry has been established to quantify protein turnover on a global scale². However, these methods are limited by population averaging, and informatio....

Protocol

Note: In this study, the E14 ES cell line was used. However, this protocol is directly applicable to any other mouse ES cell line expressing a protein of interest fused to a SNAP-tag, either by tagging the endogenous protein or by using overexpression. For the examples shown in the results section, doxycycline-inducible SNAP-tag fusion cell lines were used (SNAP-tag fused to the following proteins: Nanog, Oct4, Srsf11, or to the fluorescent proteins mOrange2 and sfGFP, and put under the control of a doxycycline-inducible promoter. See¹¹ for further information on the plasmids used for the generation of the doxycycline-inducible SNAP-tag fusion ....

Results

The described protocol provides an estimate of the cell-to-cell variability in half-life for any given protein fused to a SNAP-tag. The use of recombinant E-cadherin-Fc for coating of the imaging plate allows for single cell resolution in ES cells, which otherwise grow in colonies. Single cells can be tracked separately throughout the course of the movie ( Figure 1A).

In order to determine the protein half-life for each single cell, it is crucial to measure the in.......

Discussion

The most crucial step when using a SNAP-tag to monitor protein decay is to ensure that no residual unbound dye is left in the medium or in the cells after washing, as otherwise it might bind to newly produced SNAP-tag molecules later in the course of the experiment and thereby compromise the decay curve. This is on one hand achieved by carefully performing all the described washing steps. On the other hand, the dye concentration should be kept as low as possible, while still being in a range that allows for obtaining a g.......

Materials

List of materials used in this article

Name	Company	Catalog Number	Comments
Equipment
ES cell line expressing a SNAP-tag fusion protein of interest	-	-
Falcon 100 mm TC-Treated Cell Culture Dish	Corning	353003
96 Well, Black/Clear, Tissue Culture Treated Plate	Corning	353219
Neubauer-improved counting chamber, 0.1 mm	Marienfeld-superior	640030
CO2 Incubator	Panasonic	MCO-170AICUV-PE
Centrifuge 5804 R	Eppendorf	5804000528
InCell Analyzer 2200 Cell Imaging System	GE Healthcare Life Sciences	29027886
Name	Company	Catalog Number	Comments
Reagents
Glasgow Minimum Essential Medium	Sigma-Aldrich	G5154
Fetal Bovine Serum, embyonic stem cell-qualified	ThermoFisher	16141-079
Sodium pyruvate solution	Sigma-Aldrich	113-24-6
Minimum Essential Medium  Non-Essential Amino Acids	ThermoFisher	11140-035
Penicillin-Streptomycin	BioConcept	4-01F00H
L-Glutamine 200mM	ThermoFisher	25030-024
2-Mercaptoethanol	Sigma-Aldrich	63689-25ML-F
Leukemia Inhibitory factor	-	-	Produced in the lab by transient transfection of HEK-293T cells, followed by collection and filtering of the supernatant.
CHIR99021 (GSK-3 Inhibitor XVI)	Merck Millipore	361559
PD 0325901	Sigma-Aldrich	391210-10-9
Gelatin from bovine skin	Sigma-Aldrich	9000-70-8
Dulbecco's PBS 10x concentrated	BioConcept	3-05K00-I
Dulbecco's PBS Without Ca++/Mg++	BioConcept	3-05F29-I
Trypsin-EDTA-Solution 0.25%	Sigma-Aldrich	T4049
Recombinant Mouse E-Cadherin Fc Chimera protein	R&D systems	748-EC-050
Doxycycline hyclate	Sigma-Aldrich	D9891
SNAP-Cell 647-SiR	New England BioLabs	S9102S
FluoroBrite DMEM	ThermoFisher	A18967-01
Name	Company	Catalog Number	Comments
Software
FIJI	-	-	Open-source image analysis software
MATLAB R2014a	Mathworks	-
Microsoft Excel	Microsoft	-