Journal: Scientific Reports
Article Title: Nano-Luciferase complementation assay of human herpesvirus 8 chemo/cytokine-receptor interactions
doi: 10.1038/s41598-025-19281-3
Figure Lengend Snippet: The protein fragment complementation assay of the interactions between HHV-8 viral chemokines and CCR8. ( A ) Illustration of the NanoBiT-based protein fragment complementation assay of chemokine-receptor interaction. When a chemokine binds to its receptor on the plasma membrane of intact cells, their fused Small BiT (SmB; 1.3 kDa) and Large BiT (LgB; 17.6 kDa) fragments of Nano Luciferase (NLuc) are brought into proximity, which allows structural complementation thus yielding a functional enzyme acting on NLuc substrate, furimazine. ( B ) Schematic diagram of NanoBiT-fused CCR8. CCR8 was tagged with the bovine prolactin signal sequence (PSS) and the V5 epitope for efficient translocation into the endoplasmic reticulum and immunological detection of expression, respectively. ( C ) Immunofluorescence detection of cell surface expression of the NanoBiT-fused CCR8 protein transfected into 293T cells. DAPI (4’,6-diamidino-2-pheynylindole) was used to visualize cell nuclei. Red asterisks denote untransfected cells. Scale bar, 10 μm. ( D ) Schematic diagram of the NanoBiT-fused viral chemokines vCCL1 (D1-23) and vCCL2(D1-20), which lack their signal sequences. ( E ) Immunoblot detection of the NanoBiT-fused viral chemokines in the culture media. Red asterisks indicate the vCCL bands, and black asterisks indicate non-specific bands. Supplementary Fig. S4 presents the original membranes of the immunoblots. ( F ) NanoBiT assays of vCCL-CCR8 interaction. The relative luminescence unit (RLU) was measured at 30 s after the mixture of the NanoBiT-fused vCCL and furimazine was added to the suspension of the NanoBiT-CCR8-transfected 293T cells. Each value represents the mean of triplicate samples from two independent experiments. Error bars represent standard deviations. The one-way ANOVA test was used to assess the statistical significance of differences between groups, and the t-test was used for post hoc comparisons. ***, p < 0.001.
Article Snippet: Human embryo kidney 293T (ATCC) and HeLa (ATCC) cell lines were cultured in DMEM media supplemented with 10% fetal bovine serum and 1% antibiotics of penicillin, streptomycin, and 1.5 μg/ml plasmocin (Invivogen) in a humidified incubator at 5% CO 2 at 37 °C.
Techniques: Protein-Fragment Complementation Assay, Clinical Proteomics, Membrane, Luciferase, Functional Assay, Sequencing, Translocation Assay, Expressing, Immunofluorescence, Transfection, Western Blot, Suspension