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γ-Secretase epsilon-cleavage assay is derived from the cell-based Tango assay (Kang et al ., 2015), and is a fast and sensitive method to determine the initial cleavage of C99 by γ-secretase. In this protocol, we use HTL cells, which are HEK293 cells with a stably integrated luciferase reporter under the control of the bacterial tetO operator element, in which C99 C terminally fused to a reversed tetracyclin-inducible activator (rTA) transcriptional activator is expressed. Endogenous or transfected γ-secretase cleaves a C terminally fused rTA transcriptional activator from C99, allowing rTA to move to the nucleus to activate a luciferase reporter gene as a measurement for γ-secretase cleavage activity., Competing Interests: The authors declare no conflict of interest.

The Tango assay is a protein-protein interaction assay, in which a transcription factor (rTA) is fused to a membrane-bound protein via a linker that contains a cleavage site for TEV protease, whereas a soluble interaction partner is fused to TEV protease (Barnea et al. , 2008). Association between the two interaction partners leads to an efficient cleavage of the transcription factor, allowing it to translocate to the nucleus and activate a luciferase reporter gene as measurement of the interactions. In this modified assay, we fused one copy of the membrane-spanning amyloid precursor protein (APP) C99 region to TEV site-rTA (C99-TEV site-rTA) and a second copy to TEV protease (C99-TEV) to analyze intramembrane C99-C99 interaction in live cells., Competing Interests: The authors declare no conflict of interest.

The bioluminescence resonance energy transfer (BRET) assay can be used as an indicator of molecular approximation and/or interaction. A significant resonance energy transfer signal is generated when the acceptor, having the appropriate spectral overlap with the donor emission, is approximated with the donor. In the example provided, proteins tagged with bioluminescent Renilla luciferase (Rlu) as donor and yellow fluorescent protein (YFP) as acceptor were co-expressed in cells. This pair of donor and acceptor have an approximate Förster distance of 4.4 nm, providing the optimal working distance (Dacres et al ., 2010). This technique can be used to explore the time-course of specific molecular interactions that occur in living cells., Competing Interests: Authors have no conflicts of interest or competing interests.

Pulldown assay is a conventional method to determine protein-protein interactions in vitro . Expressing a protein of interest with two different tags allows testing whether both versions can be captured via one of the two tags as homooligomeric complex. This protocol is based on streptavidin bead capture of a biotinylated protein and co-associated Flag-tagged protein using Streptavidin MagBeads., Competing Interests: The authors declare no conflict of interest.