Characterization and Development of Photoactivatable Fluorescent Proteins for Single-Molecule–Based Superresolution Imaging
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Characterization and development of photoactivatable fluorescent proteins for single-molecule–based superresolution imaging Siyuan Wanga, Jeffrey R. Moffitta, Graham T. Dempseya, X. Sunney Xiea, and Xiaowei Zhuanga,b,c,1 Departments of aChemistry and Chemical Biology and bPhysics, Harvard University, cHoward Hughes Medical Institute, Cambridge, MA 02138 Contributed by Xiaowei Zhuang, April 10, 2014 (sent for review February 7, 2014) Photoactivatable fluorescent proteins (PAFPs) have been widely photons, a higher photon budget leads to higher localization used for superresolution imaging based on the switching and precision and hence higher image resolution (7, 9). (ii) The localization of single molecules. Several properties of PAFPs second property is the on–off switching rate ratio (on–off ratio), strongly influence the quality of the superresolution images. defined as the ratio between the on-switching (activation) and These properties include (i) the number of photons emitted per off-switching or photobleaching rates under the illumination of switching cycle, which affects the localization precision of individ- the imaging light only (7). Even in the absence of activation light, ual molecules; (ii) the ratio of the on- and off-switching rate con- the imaging light itself can also switch on the PAFPs, albeit at stants, which limits the achievable localization density; (iii) the a low rate. Thus, the ratio between the on-switching and off- dimerization tendency, which could cause undesired aggregation switching rates under this condition determines the lower bound of target proteins; and (iv) the signaling efficiency, which de- of the fraction of PAFP molecules in the on-state at any given termines the fraction of target–PAFP fusion proteins that is de- time. The presence of activation light would increase this frac- tectable in a cell. Here, we evaluated these properties for 12 tion. When the product of this fraction and the density of fluo- rescent labels reaches approximately one fluorophore per commonly used PAFPs fused to both bacterial target proteins, diffraction-limited volume, it becomes difficult to resolve and H-NS, HU, and Tar, and mammalian target proteins, Zyxin and precisely localize the activated fluorophores. Hence the on–off Vimentin. Notably, none of the existing PAFPs provided optimal ratio limits the density of fluorescent labels that can be localized, performance in all four criteria, particularly in the signaling effi- which in turn affects the effective image resolution based on the ciency and dimerization tendency. The PAFPs with low dimeriza- Nyquist sampling theorem (10). (iii) The third property is the tion tendencies exhibited low signaling efficiencies, whereas dimerization tendency. Many PAFPs have a weak tendency to mMaple showed the highest signaling efficiency but also a high form dimers; this could even be true for the PAFPs that are dimerization tendency. To address this limitation, we engineered reported as being monomeric. When these proteins are fused to two new PAFPs based on mMaple, which we termed mMaple2 and target proteins that also tend to polymerize, they may cause mMaple3. These proteins exhibited substantially reduced or unde- undesired aggregation of the target proteins and distort the na- tectable dimerization tendencies compared with mMaple but main- tive distribution of the protein of interest. (iv) The fourth tained the high signaling efficiency of mMaple. In the meantime, property is the signaling efficiency, defined as the ratio between these proteins provided photon numbers and on–off switching rate the number of detectable PAFP-fusion molecules per cell and ratios that are comparable to the best achieved values among PAFPs. the expression level of the fusion protein. Fluorescent proteins do not necessarily fold with 100% efficiency. Among the folded STORM | PALM | fPALM | photoconvertible | photoswitchable molecules, not all of them will become mature at the time of imaging. Among the matured PAFP molecules, only a subset can hotoactivated localization microscopy, stochastic optical re- be photoactivated and imaged. Because of these deficiencies, the construction microscopy, and related imaging methods take number of fusion molecules detected could be substantially P lower than the expression level of the fusion protein. PAFPs with advantage of photoswitching and imaging of single molecules to higher signaling efficiencies will lead to higher localization circumvent the diffraction limit of spatial resolution in light – densities for a given target protein, which will in turn increase the microscopy (1 3). In these methods, only a subset of the fluo- effective image resolution. rescent labels in the sample is switched on at any given time such In this work, we measured the above properties of 12 commonly that the positions of individual fluorophores can be localized used PAFPs, including PAGFP (11), Dendra2 (12, 13), mEos2 from their images with high precision. Iteration of this process allows numerous fluorescent labels to be localized and an image Significance with sub–diffraction-limit resolution to be reconstructed from the fluorophore localizations. Fluorescent proteins that can be activated from dark to fluorescent or converted from one color Photoactivatable fluorescent proteins (PAFPs) are important probes for superresolution fluorescence microscopy, which allows the to another are widely used for such imaging approaches (4, 5). – Although photoactivatable fluorescent proteins (PAFPs) are spatial organization of proteins in living cells to be probed with sub generally dimmer than photoswitchable dyes (6, 7) and hence diffraction-limit resolution. Here, we compare four properties of give lower image resolution, the ease and high specificity of la- PAFPs that are critical for superresolution imaging and report two beling protein targets in living cells with fluorescent proteins new PAFPs that exhibit excellent performance in all four properties. makes PAFPs highly appealing probes for imaging the dynamics Author contributions: S.W., J.R.M., and X.Z. designed research; S.W., J.R.M., and G.T.D. of cellular structures (4, 8). performed research; S.W. and J.R.M. contributed new reagents/analytic tools; S.W., J.R.M., For single-molecule–based superresolution imaging methods, X.S.X., and X.Z. analyzed and interpreted data; and S.W., J.R.M., G.T.D., X.S.X., and X.Z. several properties of PAFPs are particularly important for the wrote the paper. image quality. Here, we focus on four such key properties. (i) Conflict of interest statement: A US provisional patent application has been filed for the The first property is the photon budget, defined as the average new fluorescent proteins developed in this work. number of photons emitted in each switching event. Given that 1To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: [email protected]. the error of localizing an individual fluorophore approximately This article contains supporting information online at www.pnas.org/lookup/suppl/doi:10. scales with the inverse square root of the number of detected 1073/pnas.1406593111/-/DCSupplemental. 8452–8457 | PNAS | June 10, 2014 | vol. 111 | no. 23 www.pnas.org/cgi/doi/10.1073/pnas.1406593111 Downloaded by guest on September 28, 2021 (14), mEos3.2 (15), tdEos (16), mKikGR (17), PAmCherry (18), and switching off (or photobleaching) the PAFPs in the presence PAtagRFP (19), mMaple (20), PSCFP2 (13, 21), Dronpa (22), and of imaging light only. By definition, the on-switching rate is the mGeosM (23). From this screen, we found that none of these increment in probability of the on-switching events per unit time. PAFPs was simultaneously optimal in all four criteria described To measure this quantity, we imaged the Zyxin-PAFP–express- above. For example, PAtagRFP and mEos3.2 exhibited the ing cells in the superresolution mode for a short period without highest photon budgets among PAFPs, excellent on–off ratios, and any activation light (with imaging light only). The samples were undetectable dimerization tendencies, but showed poor signaling then imaged to completion with an additional activation light at efficiencies. Alternatively, mMaple provided excellent signaling 405 nm. The ratio of the total number of activation events ac- efficiency and on–off ratio with a photon budget nearly equal to cumulated by a certain time during the period without activation those of PAtagRFP and mEos3.2, but had a substantial di- light over the total number of activation events by the end of the merization tendency. To address this limitation, we developed two imaging process was determined. The slope of this cumulative new PAFPs based on mMaple that exhibited substantially reduced activation probability against time then gave the on-switching or undetectable dimerization tendencies while maintaining the rate (Fig. 2 A and B, and Table S1). The off-switching rate was high signaling efficiency, high photon budget, and low on–off ratio determined from the inverse of the mean lifetime of the on-state of mMaple. These PAFPs will substantially facilitate super- of each PAFP in the presence of the imaging light (Fig. 2 C and resolution imaging of cellular structures. D, and Table S1). The ratios between the on- and off-switching rates were determined for all 12 PAFPs (Table 1). Because both Results on- and off-switching rates scale linearly with the illumination in- Photon Budget of Photoactivatable Fluorescent Proteins. tensity, the on–off ratio should be independent of the imaging light To evalu- − intensity. The on–off ratios were generally very small (10 5 to ate the properties of PAFPs under conditions similar to typical − − superresolution imaging experiments, we fused each PAFP to 10 6) except for PAGFP, Dronpa, and mGeosM, which were ∼10 3. various target proteins and expressed these fusion proteins in From the superresolution images of Zyxin, it is evident that the either mammalian cells or bacteria. To measure the photon bud- PAFP with a smaller on–off ratio gave images with a higher lo- get, we fused the PAFPs to the mammalian focal adhesion protein calization density and hence higher image quality (Fig. 2 E and F).