Indirect Methods To Measure Unfolded Proteins In Living Cells Using Fluorescent Proteins

Abstract

In the study of the unfolded protein response pathway, it is essential to determine the amount of unfolded proteins that the cell is accumulating. Besides being essential it is one of the most challenging technique because of the difficulty to detect unfolded proteins without producing protein denaturation with the method itself. Thus, indirect methods became very useful as the use of fluorescent proteins. In this chapter, we present some of the most used methods to indirectly measure protein folding in living cells using fluorescent proteins.

Keywords: Endoplasmic reticulum stress; Fluorescent proteins; Indirect method; Unfolded protein response.