Novel screening system for protein-protein interactions by bimolecular fluorescence complementation in Saccharomyces cerevisiae

For high-throughput screening of protein-protein interactions, we have developed a novel yeast screening system using Bimolecular fluorescence complementation (BiFC). Two yeast plasmids, in which genes of heterodimerized peptides LZA and LZB were each fused with those of non-fluorescent half fragments of Kusabira-Green mutant (mKG2), were transformed into a- and α-type yeast, respectively. Mating of them gave a library, which was screened by following green fluorescence resulted from LZA-LZB interaction. The method showed potential ability to detect the positive clones from a model library, in which green-fluorescent and non-fluorescent yeast was mixed in a ratio of 1:675.