Visual detection of binary, ternary and quaternary protein interactions in fission yeast using a Pil1 co-tethering assay

Protein–protein interactions are vital for executing nearly all cellular processes. To facilitate the detection of protein–protein interactions in living cells of the fission yeast Schizosaccharomyces pombe, here we present an efficient and convenient method termed the Pil1 co-tethering assay. In its basic form, we tether a bait protein to mCherry-tagged Pil1, which forms cortical filamentary structures, and examine whether a GFP-tagged prey protein colocalizes with the bait. We demonstrate that this assay is capable of detecting pairwise protein–protein interactions of cytosolic proteins and nuclear proteins. Furthermore, we show that this assay can be used for detecting not only binary protein–protein interactions, but also ternary and quaternary protein–protein interactions. Using this assay, we systematically characterized the protein–protein interactions in the Atg1 complex and in the phosphatidylinositol 3-kinase (PtdIns3K) complexes and found that Atg38 is incorporated into the PtdIns3K complex I via an Atg38–Vps34 interaction. Our data show that this assay is a useful and versatile tool and should be added to the routine toolbox of fission yeast researchers. This article has an associated First Person interview with the first author of the paper.