Conditional modulation of biological processes by low-temperature degrons

Abstract

Conditional modulation of biological processes plays key roles in basic and applied research and in translation. It can be achieved on various levels via a multitude of approaches. One of the directions is manipulating target protein levels and activity by transcriptional, posttranscriptional, translational, and posttranslational control. Because in most of these techniques, the synthesis of the target proteins is adjusted to the needs, they all rely on the specific half-life of the target protein and its turn-over. Therefore, their time-of-action, in direct correlation to the desired reprogramming of molecular phenotypes caused by altering the target levels, is fixed and determined by the naturally inherent properties. We have introduced the low-temperature degron (lt-degron) to various intact multicellular organisms which allows to control target protein levels and therefore function and activity directly on the level of active protein. The lt-degron uses a combination of Ubiquitin-fusion technique linking target protein degradation to the N-end rule pathway of targeted proteolysis coupled with the use of cell- and tissue-specific promoters.