Department

Mechanical Engineering

Document Type

Article

Publication Title

eLife

ISSN

2050-084X

DOI

10.7554/eLife.67525

First Page

1

Last Page

20

Publication Date

Fall 1-1-2021

Abstract

Measuring protein-protein interaction (PPI) affinities is fundamental to biochemistry. Yet, conventional methods rely upon the law of mass action and cannot measure many PPIs due to a scarcity of reagents and limitations in the measurable affinity ranges. Here, we present a novel technique that leverages the fundamental concept of friction to produce a mechanical signal that correlates to binding potential. The mechanically transduced immunosorbent (METRIS) assay utilizes rolling magnetic probes to measure PPI interaction affinities. METRIS measures the translational displacement of protein-coated particles on a protein-functionalized substrate. The translational displacement scales with the effective friction induced by a PPI, thus producing a mechanical signal when a binding event occurs. The METRIS assay uses as little as 20 pmols of reagents to measure a wide range of affinities while exhibiting a high resolution and sensitivity. We use METRIS to measure several PPIs that were previously inaccessible using traditional methods, providing new insights into epigenetic recognition.

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Included in

Engineering Commons

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