Utilization of lysine 13C-methylation NMR for protein–protein interaction studies

Chemical modification is an easy way for stable isotope labeling of non-labeled proteins. The reductive 13C-methylation of the amino group of the lysine side-chain by 13C-formaldehyde is a post-modification and is applicable to most proteins since this chemical modification specifically and quickly proceeds under mild conditions such as 4 °C, pH 6.8, overnight. 13C-methylation has been used for NMR to study the interactions between the methylated proteins and various molecules, such as small ligands, nucleic acids and peptides. Here we applied lysine 13C-methylation NMR to monitor protein–protein interactions. The affinity and the intermolecular interaction sites of methylated ubiquitin with three ubiquitin-interacting proteins were successfully determined using chemical-shift perturbation experiments via the 1H–13C HSQC spectra of the 13C-methylated-lysine methyl groups. The lysine 13C-methylation NMR results also emphasized the importance of the usage of side-chain signals to monitor the intermolecular interaction sites, and was applicable to studying samples with concentrations in the low sub-micromolar range.