Team:ESBS-Strasbourg/proteolux

You are interested in analyzing a specific protein in its natural cell environment? You want to analyze its dynamics, by installing any defined protein concentration in your cell without interfering with the cell’s metabolism? Proteolux offers the solution:

A specific light-controllable protein degradation system for any defined protein.

Proteolux’s aim is to offer new and more sophisticated methods for protein analysis. Proteins are the actual active factors within cells and controlling protein concentrations leads to the control over the cell itself. Protein levels are installed by a complex homeostasis of de-novo protein synthesis and protein degradation. There are already some techniques for controlling specific protein expression. However, up to now, there are only a few systems that offer specific control about protein degradation. Most old techniques use protein knock-out or RNA interference to analyze the protein absence phenotype (figure 1).

Figure 1: Overview about the synthesis pathway of proteins and the different layers of regulation. The coding information of the DNA is transcribed into mRNA, which is further translated into proteins. The repression of expression protein can take place on three different layers of regulation. Classic methods include gene knockout or RNA interference, which contain several drawbacks. Proteolux defines a new layer of regulation directly on protein level, which can further regulate DNA and mRNA levels.