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Detecting Purinosome Metabolon Formation with Fluorescence Microscopy: Methods and Protocols
Book chapter

Detecting Purinosome Metabolon Formation with Fluorescence Microscopy: Methods and Protocols

Anthony M. Pedley and Stephen J. Benkovic
pp.279-289
Methods in Molecular Biology, Humana Press Inc
01/01/2018
DOI: 10.1007/978-1-4939-7759-8_17
PMCID: PMC6396681
PMID: 29605921
url
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/6396681View
Open Access

Abstract

A long-standing hypothesis in the de novo purine biosynthetic pathway is that there must be highly coordinated processes to allow for enhanced metabolic flux when a cell demands purines. One mechanism by which the pathway meets its cellular demand is through the spatial organization of pathway enzymes into multienzyme complexes called purinosomes. Cellular conditions known to impact the activity of enzymes in the pathway or overall pathway flux have been reflected in a change in the number of purinosome-positive cells or the density of purinosomes in a given cell. The following general protocols outline the steps needed for purinosome detection through transient expression of fluorescent protein chimeras or through immunofluorescence in purine-depleted HeLa cells using confocal laser scanning microscopy. These protocols define a purinosome as a colocalization of FGAMS with one additional pathway enzyme, such as PPAT or GART, and provide insights into the proper identification of a purinosome from other reported cellular bodies.
Biochemical Research Methods Biochemistry & Molecular Biology Life Sciences & Biomedicine Science & Technology

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