Thesis defense: Nawal Hajj Sleiman

On September 16th, Nawal Hajj Sleiman of the team of Samir Merabet will support his thesis entitled:

"A nanobody based approach to capture interactomes of dimeric protein complexes in living cells "

Abstract:

Cell fate and fitness depend on the protein content, and on the interaction networks (also called interactomes) connecting the different proteins. Proteins have the general property to engage in diverse and occasionally overlapping macromolecular assemblies, each serving distinct purposes. Therefore, identifying protein-protein interactions (PPIs) and linking them to complexes is a crucial yet challenging issue in biology. This issue was at the core of my PhD work. A first part of my work was dedicated to the improvement of an existing method for capturing novel PPIs in the context of defined biological functions. This work was established with ERK1, which is a key downstream regulator of several signaling pathways involved in many different cancers. The new tools were tested in the context of two different inhibitory molecules to capture drug-sensitive interactions of ERK1 in human HEK293T cells. One such interaction was confirmed at the functional and molecular levels, by using an original imaging strategy to access the PPI dynamics in live cells.

The second part of my PhD work was dedicated to the establishment of a pioneer methodology to capture endogenous PPIs established by a specific dimeric protein complex in human live cells. This methodology couples Bimolecular Fluorescence Complementation (BiFC) and proximity biotin labelling technologies. More specifically, it is based on a GFP-nanobody directed toward the BiFC complex and fused to the TurboID biotin ligase. Tools were established with TAZ/14-3-3 and TAZ/TEAD complexes, which translate the activity of the Hippo signaling pathway in the cytoplasm and nucleus, respectively. Our approach allowed capturing specific interactomes of the two dimeric protein complexes and identifying a novel key regulator of TAZ/14-3-3 complexes in a cancer cell context. Collectively, my PhD work introduced two complementary methodologies for deciphering PPI networks in the context of specific biological functions or in the context of a specific protein complex in human live cells. These approaches provide a novel dimension for understanding protein functions and the underlying interactomes in normal or pathological cell contexts.

Key words: Cell-PCA, Bi-nano-ID, BiFC, TurboID, nanobody, protein interaction, ERK, TAZ, Hippo Signaling.