Conditional control of fluorescent protein degradation by an auxin-dependent nanobody

The conditional and reversible depletion of proteins by auxin-mediated degradation is a powerful tool to investigate protein functions in cells and whole organisms. However, its wider applications require fusing the auxin-inducible degron (AID) to individual target proteins. Thus, establishing the auxin system for multiple proteins can be challenging. Another approach for directed protein degradation are anti-GFP nanobodies, which can be applied to GFP stock collections that are readily available in different experimental models. Here, we combine the advantages of auxin and nanobody-based degradation technologies creating an AID-nanobody to degrade GFP-tagged proteins at different cellular structures in a conditional and reversible manner in human cells. We demonstrate efficient and reversible inactivation of the anaphase promoting complex/cyclosome (APC/C) and thus provide new means to study the functions of this essential ubiquitin E3 ligase. Further, we establish auxin degradation in a vertebrate model organism by employing AID-nanobodies in zebrafish.
Current approaches to conditionally deplete target proteins require site-specific genetic engineering or have poor temporal control. Here the authors overcome these limitations by combining the AID system with nanobodies to reversibly degrade GFP-tagged proteins in living cells and zebrafish.