ja8b07461_si_001.pdf (2.27 MB)
Download fileMeasuring Ligand Binding Kinetics to Membrane Proteins Using Virion Nano-oscillators
journal contribution
posted on 2018-08-16, 00:00 authored by Guangzhong Ma, Guan-Da Syu, Xiaonan Shan, Brandon Henson, Shaopeng Wang, Prashant J. Desai, Heng Zhu, Nongjian TaoMembrane proteins
play vital roles in cellular signaling processes
and serve as the most popular drug targets. A key task in studying
cellular functions and developing drugs is to measure the binding
kinetics of ligands with the membrane proteins. However, this has
been a long-standing challenge because one must perform the measurement
in a membrane environment to maintain the conformations and functions
of the membrane proteins. Here, we report a new method to measure
ligand binding kinetics to membrane proteins using self-assembled
virion oscillators. Virions of human herpesvirus were used to display
human G-protein-coupled receptors (GPCRs) on their viral envelopes.
Each virion was then attached to a gold-coated glass surface via a
flexible polymer to form an oscillator and driven into oscillation
with an alternating electric field. By tracking changes in the oscillation
amplitude in real-time with subnanometer precision, the binding kinetics
between ligands and GPCRs was measured. We anticipate that this new
label-free detection technology can be readily applied to measure
small or large ligand binding to any type of membrane proteins and
thus contribute to the understanding of cellular functions and screening
of drugs.