Grant: Idea to Innovation

Although the human genome has been sequenced in its entirety, the function of only a small number of these genes is known. New techniques are urgently required to assign functional roles to gene products, and as a result, a growing market has flourished for commercialized protein labelling methods. We have conceived of a minimalist labelling strategy in which a minimal peptide 'tag' of only 23 amino acids can be genetically fused to a protein of interest. This tag adopts an alpha helical conformation and contains two two cysteine residues whose thiol side chains are positioned on the same side of the helix, 10 angstroms apart. As such they are ideally positioned to react with novel synthetic probe reagents that we have designed to become fluorescent only after their reaction with our peptide tag. In this way we have been able to fluorescently label specific proteins in complex biological samples, revealing their localisation and concentration. The aim of this proposal is to develop this promising new technology, through refinement of its design and evaluation of its effectiveness in a series of rigorous applications, thereby demonstrating its reduction-to-practice.