Accessibility-dependent topology studies of membrane proteins using a SpyTag/SpyCatcher protein-ligation system

Covalent protein-ligation methods were used not only to visualize the localization of proteins of interest in cells, but also to study the topology of plasma and subcellular organelle membrane proteins using fluorescent cell imaging. A 13-amino-acid SpyTag (ST) peptide was genetically introduced either into a variety of subcellular proteins of interest or into different positions of plasma or subcellular organelle membrane proteins individually. Conversely, a 15 kDa SpyCatcher (SC) protein was chemically conjugated with either fluorescent dyes or horseradish peroxidase (HRP) via a thiol-maleimide reaction. The extracellular ST-fused plasma membrane proteins were efficiently labeled with the fluorescent-dye-conjugated SC in both live and permeabilized cells, whereas the intracellularly localized ST-fused subcellular proteins were only labeled in permeabilized cells because of the limited accessibility of the fluorescent-dye-conjugated SC to the membrane. The fluorescent-dye-labeled SC together with selective membrane-permeabilizing agents successfully labeled the plasma or the subcellular organelle membrane proteins in a topology-dependent manner. Moreover, the HRP-conjugated SC not only successfully labeled the ST-fused plasma membrane proteins, thus significantly enhancing fluorescent signals in combination with the tyramide signal amplification agents, but also ligated with an external ST-fused target ligand, thus selectively binding to the endogenously expressed cellular receptors of the target cancer cells.