Signaling proteins are tightly regulated spatially and temporally to perform multiple functions. For Cdc42 and other guanosine triphosphatases, the subcellular location of activation is a critical determinant of cell behavior. However, current approaches are limited in their ability to examine the dynamics of Cdc42 activity in living cells. We report the development of a biosensor capable of visualizing the changing activation of endogenous, unlabeled Cdc42 in living cells. With the use of a dye that reports protein interactions, the biosensor revealed localized activation in the trans-Golgi apparatus, microtubule-dependent Cdc42 activation at the cell periphery, and activation kinetics precisely coordinated with cell extension and retraction.

Multistep synthetic routes to eight structurally diverse and medicinally relevant targets were planned autonomously by the Chematica computer program, which combines expert chemical knowledge with network-search and artificialintelligence algorithms. All of the proposed syntheses were successfully executed in the laboratory and offer substantial yield improvements and cost savings over previous approaches or provide the first documented route to a given target. These results provide the long-awaited validation of a computer program in practically relevant synthetic design.

Covalent attachment of solvent-sensitive fluorescent dyes to proteins is a powerful tool for studying protein conformational changes, ligand binding, or posttranslational modifications. We report here new merocyanine dyes that make possible the quantitation of such protein activities in individual living cells. The quantum yield of the new dyes is sharply dependent on solvent polarity or viscosity, enabling them to report changes in their protein environment. This is combined with other stringent requirements needed in a live cell imaging dye, including appropriate photophysical properties (excitation >590 nm, high fluorescence quantum yield, high extinction coefficient), good photostability, minimal aggregation in water, and excellent water solubility. The dyes were derivatized with iodoacetamide and succinimidyl ester side chains for site-selective covalent attachment to proteins. A novel biosensor of Cdc42 activation made with one of the new dyes showed a 3-fold increase in fluorescence intensity in response to GTP-binding by Cdc42. The dyes reported here should be useful in the preparation of live cell biosensors for a diverse range of protein activities.

We report a study on protein−protein noncovalent interactions in an intracellular signaling protein complex, using single-molecule spectroscopy and molecular dynamics (MD) simulations. A Wiskott−Aldrich Syndrome Protein (WASP) fragment that binds only the activated intracellular signaling protein Cdc42 was labeled with a novel solvatochromic dye and used to probe hydrophobic interactions significant to Cdc42/WASP recognition. The study shows static and dynamic inhomogeneous conformational fluctuations of the protein complex that involve bound and loosely bound states. A two-coupled, two-state Markovian kinetic model is proposed for the conformational dynamics. The MD simulations explore the origin of these conformational states and associated conformational fluctuations in this protein−protein interaction system.