Description:
CLIP-Cell™Block(bromothenylcytosine,BTC)isanon-fluorescentcompoundthatblocksthereactivityoftheCLIP-tag™invitroandinsideoronthesurfaceoflivingcells.ItcanbeusedtogenerateinactivecontrolsinlivecelllabelingexperimentsperformedwithCLIP-tagfusionproteins.BTCreactswithCLIP-tagirreversIBLy,inactivatingitforsubsequentlabelingsteps.TheCLIP-tagproteinlabelingsystemenablesthespecific,covalentattachmentofvirtuallyanymoleculetoaproteinofinterest.CLIP-tagisaproteintagbasedonhumanO6-alkylguanine-DNAalkyltransferase(hAGT).CLIP-tagsubstratesarederivativesofbenzylcytosine(BC).Inthelabelingreaction,thesubstitutedbenzylgroupofthesubstrateiscovalentlyattachedtothereactivecysteineofCLIP-tagformingastablethioetherbond. AlthoughCLIP-tagisbasedonthesameproteinasSNAP-tag®,thebenzylcytosinesubstratesformaseparateclassofsubstrates,differentfromthebenzylguaninesubstratesrecognizedbySNAP-tag.CLIP-tagandSNAP-tagcanbeusedfororthogonalandcomplementarylabelingoftwoproteinssimultaneouslyinthesamecells.
Therearetwostepstousingthissystem:subcloningandexpressionoftheproteinofinterestasaCLIP-tagfusion,andlabelingofthefusionwiththeCLIP-tagsubstrateofchoice.TheuseofBTCduringthelabelingoffusionproteinswithCLIP-Cellsubstratesisdescribedinthisdocument.