The fluorescent protein stability assay: an efficient method for monitoring intracellular protein stability.

Abstract

The stability of intracellular proteins is highly variable, from a few minutes to several hours, and can be tightly regulated to respond to external and internal cellular environment changes. Several techniques can be used to study the stability of a specific protein, including pulse-chase labeling and blocking of translation. Another approach that has gained interest in recent years is fusing a protein of interest to a fluorescent reporter. In this report, the authors present a new version of this approach aimed at optimizing expression and comparison of the two reporter proteins. The authors show that the system works efficiently in various cells and can be useful for studying changes in protein stability and assessing the effects of drugs.