Excimer-based peptide beacons: a convenient experimental approach for monitoring polypeptide-protein and...

While protein-polypeptide and nucleic acid-polypeptide interactions are of significant experimental interest, quantitative methods for the characterization of such interactions are often cumbersome. Here we described a relatively simple means of optically monitoring such interactions using excimer-based peptide beacons (PBs). The design of PBs is based on the observation that, whereas short peptides are almost invariably unfolded and highly dynamic, they become rigid when complexed with macromolecular targets. Using this binding-induced folding to segregate two pyrene moieties and therefore inhibit excimer formation, we have produced PBs directed against both anti-HIV antibodies and the retroviral transactive response (TAR) RNA hairpin. For both polypeptides, target recognition is accompanied by a roughly 2-fold decrease in excimer emission, thus allowing the detection of their respective targets at concentrations of a few nanomolar. Because excimer emission requires the formation of a tight, precisely oriented pyrene dimer, even relatively trivial binding-induced segregation reduces fluorescence significantly. This suggests that the PB approach will be suitable for monitoring a wide range of peptide-macromolecule recognition events. Moreover, the synthesis of excimer-based PBs utilizes commercially available modified pyrenes in a simple and well-established protocol, making the approach well suited for routine laboratory applications.