Microscopy images of induced pluripotent stem cells showing different proteins endogenously tagged with the split mNeonGreen fluorescent protein (orange) and DNA-dye (blue) during cell division. Image credit: Husser et al. (CC BY 4.0)
The human body contains around 20,000 different proteins that perform a myriad of essential roles. To understand how these proteins work in healthy individuals and during disease, we need to know their precise locations inside cells and how these locations may change in different situations.
Genetic tools known as fluorescent proteins are often used as tags to study the location of specific proteins of interest within cells. When exposed to light, the fluorescent proteins emit specific colours of light that can be observed using microscopes. In a fluorescent protein system known as split mNeonGreen, researchers insert the DNA encoding two fragments of a fluorescent protein (one large, one small) separately into cells. The large fragment can be found throughout the cell, while the small fragment is attached to specific host proteins. When the two fragments meet, they assemble into the full mNeonGreen protein and can fluoresce.
Researchers can use split mNeonGreen and other similar systems to generate large libraries of cells where the small fragment of a fluorescent protein is attached to thousands of different host proteins. However, so far these libraries are restricted to a handful of different types of cells.
To address this challenge, Husser et al. inserted the DNA encoding the large fragment of mNeonGreen into human cells known as induced pluripotent stem cells, which are able to give rise to any other type of human cell. This then enabled the team to quickly and efficiently generate a library of stem cells that express the small fragment of mNeonGreen attached to different host proteins. Further experiments studied the locations of host proteins in the stem cells just before they divided into two cells. This suggested that there are differences between how induced pluripotent stem cells and other types of cells divide.
In the future, the cells and the method developed by Husser et al. may be used by other researchers to create atlases showing where human proteins are located in many other types of cells.
