Protein-fragment complementation assays for large-scale analysis of protein-protein interactions

Ewa Blaszczak (1) , Natalia Lazarewicz (2, 1) , Aswani Sudevan (2) , Robert Wysocki (3) , Gwenaël Rabut (2)

1 UWr - University of Wrocław [Poland]
2 IGDR - Institut de Génétique et Développement de Rennes
3 Wroclaw University of Science and Technology

Protein-protein interactions (PPIs) orchestrate nearly all biological processes. They are also considered attractive drug targets for treating many human diseases, including cancers and neurodegenerative disorders. Protein-fragment complementation assays (PCAs) provide a direct and straightforward way to study PPIs in living cells or multicellular organisms. Importantly, PCAs can be used to detect the interaction of proteins expressed at endogenous levels in their native cellular environment. In this review, we present the principle of PCAs and discuss some of their advantages and limitations. We describe their application in large-scale experiments to investigate PPI networks and to screen or profile PPI targeting compounds.

Mots clés: protein–protein interactions; proteome-wide analysis; drug targets; high-throughput screening; large-scale; protein-fragment complementation assays

Domaines: Sciences du Vivant [q-bio]

Ewa Blaszczak, Natalia Lazarewicz, Aswani Sudevan, Robert Wysocki, Gwenaël Rabut. Protein-fragment complementation assays for large-scale analysis of protein-protein interactions. Biochemical Society Transactions, 2021, 49 (3), pp.1337-1348. ⟨10.1042/BST20201058⟩. ⟨hal-03282309⟩