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MINI REVIEW article

Front. Cell Dev. Biol.
Sec. Membrane Traffic and Organelle Dynamics
Volume 12 - 2024 | doi: 10.3389/fcell.2024.1466915
This article is part of the Research Topic Lipids and Membrane Contacts – Structure, Functional Aspects and Implications on Ageing, Cell Death and Autophagy, Volume II View all articles

Imaging and proteomics toolkits for studying organelle contact sites

Provisionally accepted
Rico Gamuyao Rico Gamuyao Chi-Lun Chang Chi-Lun Chang *
  • St. Jude Children's Research Hospital, Memphis, United States

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

    Organelle contact sites are regions where two heterologous membranes are juxtaposed by molecular tethering complexes. These contact sites are important in inter-organelle communication and cellular functional integration. However, visualizing these minute foci and identifying contact site proteomes have been challenging. In recent years, fluorescence-based methods have been developed to visualize the dynamic physical interaction of organelles while proximity labeling approaches facilitate the profiling of proteomes at contact sites. In this review, we explain the design principle for these contact site reporters: a dual-organelle interaction mechanism based on how endogenous tethers and/or tethering complexes localize to contact sites. We classify the contact site reporters into three categories: (i) single-protein systems, (ii) two-component systems with activated reporter signal upon organelle proximity, and (iii) reporters for contact site proteomes. We also highlight advanced imaging analysis with high temporal-spatial resolution and the use of machine-learning algorithms for detecting contact sites.

    Keywords: organelle contact sites, Electron microscopy, light microscopy, Bimolecular complementation, Split fluorescent protein, splitFAST, Proximity labeling, split-TurboID

    Received: 18 Jul 2024; Accepted: 05 Sep 2024.

    Copyright: © 2024 Gamuyao and Chang. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

    * Correspondence: Chi-Lun Chang, St. Jude Children's Research Hospital, Memphis, United States

    Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.