Improvement of a Venus-Based bimolecular fluorescence complementation assay to visualize bFos-bJun interaction in living cells

Abstract

Bimolecular fluorescence complementation (BiFC) assay makes it possible to visualize protein-protein interactions in living cells. In this assay, Venus, a brightyellow variant of green fluorescent protein, is known to produce fluorescent backgrounds due to non-specific interactions. In this study we found that the V150A mutation increased by 8.6-fold the signal-to-noise ratio in the BiFC assay of bFos-bJun interaction.