Chemical dimerizers are powerful tools for non-invasive manipulation of enzyme activities in intact cells. Here we introduce the first rapidly reversible small-molecule-based dimerization system and demonstrate a sufficiently fast switch-off to determine kinetics of lipid metabolizing enzymes in living cells. We applied this new method to induce and stop phosphatidylinositol 3-kinase (PI3K) activity, allowing us to quantitatively measure the turnover of phosphatidylinositol 3,4,5-trisphosphate (PIP3) and its downstream effectors by confocal fluorescence microscopy as well as standard biochemical methods.
Keywords: FKBP; PI3K; PIP3; SNAP; reversible chemical dimerizer.
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