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Rho family GTPases are critical regulators of many important cellular processes and the dysregulation of their activities is implicated in a variety of human diseases including oncogenesis and propagation of malignancy. The traditional methods, such as “pull-down” or two-hybrid procedures, are poorly suited to dynamically evaluate the activity of Rho GTPases, especially in living mammalian cells. To provide a novel alternative approach to analyzing Rho GTPase-associated signaling pathways in vivo, we developed a series of bioluminescent biosensors based on the genetically engineered firefly luciferase. These split-luciferase-based biosensors enable non-invasive visualization and quantification of the activity of Rho GTPases in living subjects. The strategy is to reasonably split the gene of firefly luciferase protein into two inactive fragments and then respectively fuse the two fragments to Rho GTPase and the GTPase-binding domain (GBD) of the specific effector. Upon Rho GTPase interacting with the binding domain in a GTP-dependent manner, these two luciferase fragments are brought into close proximity, leading to luciferase reconstitution and photon production in the presence of the substrate. Using these bimolecular luminescence complementation (BiLC) biosensors, we successfully visualized and quantified the activities of the three best characterized Rho GTPases by measuring the luminescence in living cells. We also experimentally investigated the sensitivity of these Rho GTPase biosensors to upstream regulatory proteins and extracellular ligands without lysing cells and doing labor-intensive works. By virtue of the unique functional characteristics of bioluminescence imaging, the BiLC-based biosensors provide an enormous potential for in vivo imaging of Rho GTPase signaling pathways and high-throughput screening of therapeutic drugs targeted to Rho GTPases and (or) upstream molecules in the near future.

Novel Split-Luciferase-Based Genetically Encoded Biosensors for Noninvasive Visualization of Rho GTPases