Analyzing Protein Interactions by MAC-Tag Approaches

Abstract

Proteomics methods such as affinity purification (AP) and proximity-dependent labeling (PL) coupled with mass spectrometry (MS) are currently commonly utilized to define interaction landscapes. BioID is one of the PL approaches, and it employs the expression of bait proteins fused to a nonspecific biotin ligase (BirA*), to induce in vivo biotinylation of proximal proteins. We developed the multiple approaches combined (MAC)-tag workflow, which allows for both AP and BioID analysis with a single construct and with almost identical protein purification and MS identification procedures. MAC-tag is a well-established method and has been widely used. Recent developed PL tags such as BioID2 and UltraID are smaller versions of BirA* with faster labeling efficiency. We therefore incorporate these tags into our system to develop MAC2-tag (containing BioID2) and MAC3-tag (containing UltraID) to overcome potential limitations of the original MAC-tag system and broaden the spectrum of applications for MAC-tags. Here, we describe a detailed procedure for the MAC-tag system workflow including cell line generation for the MAC/MAC2/MAC3-tagged protein of interest (POI), sample preparation for AP and PL protein purification, and MS analysis.

Keywords: Affinity purification; Interactomics; MAC-tag; MAC3-tag; Mass spectrometry; Protein interactions; Proteomics; Proximity labeling.