Generation of endogenous pH-sensitive EGF receptor and its application in high-throughput screening for proteins involved in clathrin-mediated endocytosis
Abstract
Previously we used gene-editing to label endogenous EGF receptor (EGFR) with GFP and demonstrate that picomolar concentrations of EGFR ligand drive signaling and endocytosis of EGFR in tumors in vivo (Pinilla-Macua et al, 2017). We now use gene-editing to insert a fluorogen activating protein (FAP) in the EGFR extracellular domain. Binding of the tandem dye pair MG-Bis-SA to FAP-EGFR provides a ratiometric pH-sensitive model with dual fluorescence excitation and a single far-red emission. The excitation ratio of fluorescence intensities was demonstrated to faithfully report the fraction of FAP-EGFR located in acidic endosomal/lysosomal compartments. Coupling native FAP-EGFR expression with the high method sensitivity has allowed development of a high-throughput assay to measure the rates of clathrin-mediated FAP-EGFR endocytosis stimulated with physiological EGF concentrations. The assay was utilized to screen a phosphatase siRNA library. These studies highlight the utility of endogenous pH-sensitive FAP-receptor chimeras in high-throughput analysis of endocytosis.
Data availability
All source data from library screening are provided in supplemental materials
Article and author information
Author details
Funding
National Institutes of Health (GM124186)
- Simon C Watkins
- Alexander Sorkin
National Institutes of Health (R01EB017268)
- Marcel P Bruchez
- Simon C Watkins
National Institutes of Health (R01GM114075)
- Marcel P Bruchez
- Simon C Watkins
The funders had no role in study design, data collection and interpretation, or the decision to submit the work for publication.
Copyright
© 2019, Larsen et al.
This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License permitting unrestricted use and redistribution provided that the original author and source are credited.
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