No Arabic abstract
Extracellular protein concentrations and gradients queue a wide range of cellular responses, such as cell motility and division. Spatio-temporal quantification of these concentrations as produced by cells has proven challenging. As a result, artificial gradients must be introduced to the cell culture to correlate signal and response. Here we demonstrate a label-free nanoplasmonic imaging technique that can directly map protein concentrations as secreted by single cells in real time and which integrates with standard live-cell microscopes. When used to measure the secretion of antibodies from hybridoma cells, a broad range of time-dependent concentrations was observed: from steady-state secretions of 230 pM near the cell surface to large transients which reached as high as 56 nM over several minutes and then dissipated. The label-free nature of the technique is minimally invasive and we anticipate will enable the quantification of deterministic relationships between secreted protein concentrations and their induced cellular responses.
Fluorescence Lifetime Imaging Microscopy (FLIM) using multiphoton excitation techniques is now finding an important place in quantitative imaging of protein-protein interactions and intracellular physiology. We review here the recent developments in multiphoton FLIM methods and also present a description of a novel multiphoton FLIM system using a streak camera that was developed in our laboratory. We provide an example of a typical application of the system in which we measure the fluorescence resonance energy transfer between a donor/acceptor pair of fluorescent proteins within a cellular specimen.
From the spectral plot of the (normalized) graph Laplacian, the essential qualitative properties of a network can be simultaneously deduced. Given a class of empirical networks, reconstruction schemes for elucidating the evolutionary dynamics leading to those particular data can then be developed. This method is exemplified for protein-protein interaction networks. Traces of their evolutionary history of duplication and divergence processes are identified. In particular, we can identify typical specific features that robustly distinguish protein-protein interaction networks from other classes of networks, in spite of possible statistical fluctuations of the underlying data.
Here we present ComPPI, a cellular compartment specific database of proteins and their interactions enabling an extensive, compartmentalized protein-protein interaction network analysis (http://ComPPI.LinkGroup.hu). ComPPI enables the user to filter biologically unlikely interactions, where the two interacting proteins have no common subcellular localizations and to predict novel properties, such as compartment-specific biological functions. ComPPI is an integrated database covering four species (S. cerevisiae, C. elegans, D. melanogaster and H. sapiens). The compilation of nine protein-protein interaction and eight subcellular localization data sets had four curation steps including a manually built, comprehensive hierarchical structure of more than 1600 subcellular localizations. ComPPI provides confidence scores for protein subcellular localizations and protein-protein interactions. ComPPI has user-friendly search options for individual proteins giving their subcellular localization, their interactions and the likelihood of their interactions considering the subcellular localization of their interacting partners. Download options of search results, whole proteomes, organelle-specific interactomes and subcellular localization data are available on its website. Due to its novel features, ComPPI is useful for the analysis of experimental results in biochemistry and molecular biology, as well as for proteome-wide studies in bioinformatics and network science helping cellular biology, medicine and drug design.
Optical interferometry is amongst the most sensitive techniques for precision measurement. By increasing the light intensity a more precise measurement can usually be made. However, in some applications the sample is light sensitive. By using entangled states of light the same precision can be achieved with less exposure of the sample. This concept has been demonstrated in measurements of fixed, known optical components. Here we use two-photon entangled states to measure the concentration of the blood protein bovine serum albumin (BSA) in an aqueous buffer solution. We use an opto-fluidic device that couples a waveguide interferometer with a microfluidic channel. These results point the way to practical applications of quantum metrology to light sensitive samples.
Motivation: Assigning statistical significance accurately has become increasingly important as meta data of many types, often assembled in hierarchies, are constructed and combined for further biological analyses. Statistical inaccuracy of meta data at any level may propagate to downstream analyses, undermining the validity of scientific conclusions thus drawn. From the perspective of mass spectrometry based proteomics, even though accurate statistics for peptide identification can now be achieved, accurate protein level statistics remain challenging. Results: We have constructed a protein ID method that combines peptide evidences of a candidate protein based on a rigorous formula derived earlier; in this formula the database $P$-value of every peptide is weighted, prior to the final combination, according to the number of proteins it maps to. We have also shown that this protein ID method provides accurate protein level $E$-value, eliminating the need of using empirical post-processing methods for type-I error control. Using a known protein mixture, we find that this protein ID method, when combined with the Soric formula, yields accurate values for the proportion of false discoveries. In terms of retrieval efficacy, the results from our method are comparable with other methods tested. Availability: The source code, implemented in C++ on a linux system, is available for download at ftp://ftp.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pub/qmbp/qmbp_ms/RAId/RAId_Linux_64Bit