Novel BRET combination for detection of rapamycin-induced protein dimerization using luciferase from fungus

Bioluminescence resonance energy transfer (BRET) is one of the most promising approaches used for noninvasive imaging of protein-protein interactions in vivo. Recently, our team has discovered a genetically encodable bioluminescent system from the fungus Neonothopanus nambi and identified a novel luciferase that represents an imaging tool orthogonal to other luciferin-luciferase systems. We demonstrated the possibility of using the fungal luciferase as a new BRET donor by creating fused pairs with acceptor red fluorescent proteins, of which tdTomato provided the highest BRET efficiency. Using this new BRET system, we also designed a mTOR pathway specific rapamycin biosensor by integrating the FRB and FKBP12 protein dimerization system. We demonstrated the specificity and efficacy of the new fungal luciferase-based BRET combination for application in mammalian cell culture that will provide the unique opportunity to perform multiplexed BRET assessment in the future.