RT Journal Article
SR Electronic
T1 Intracellular production of hydrogels and synthetic RNA granules by multivalent enhancers
JF bioRxiv
FD Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory
SP 117572
DO 10.1101/117572
A1 Hideki Nakamura
A1 Albert A. Lee
A1 Ali Sobhi Afshar
A1 Shigeki Watanabe
A1 Elmer Rho
A1 Shiva Razavi
A1 Allison Suarez
A1 Yu-Chun Lin
A1 Makoto Tanigawa
A1 Brian Huang
A1 Robert DeRose
A1 Diana Bobb
A1 William Hong
A1 Sandra B. Gabelli
A1 John Goutsias
A1 Takanari Inoue
YR 2017
UL http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2017/03/16/117572.abstract
AB Non-membrane bound, hydrogel-like entities, such as RNA granules, nucleate essential cellular functions through their unique physico-chemical properties. However, these intracellular hydrogels have not been as extensively studied as their extracellular counterparts, primarily due to technical challenges in probing these materials in situ. Here, by taking advantage of a chemically inducible dimerization paradigm, we developed iPOLYMER, a strategy for rapid induction of protein-based hydrogels inside living cells. A series of biochemical and biophysical characterizations, in conjunction with computational modeling, revealed that the polymer network formed in the cytosol resembles a physiological hydrogel-like entity that behaves as a size-dependent molecular sieve. We studied several properties of the gel and functionalized it with RNA binding motifs that sequester polyadenine-containing nucleotides to synthetically mimic RNA granules. Therefore, we here demonstrate that iPOLYMER presents a unique and powerful approach to synthetically reconstitute hydrogel-like structures including RNA granules in intact cells.