Protein therapy holds great promise for treating a variety of diseases. To act on intracellular targets, therapeutic proteins must cross the plasma membrane. This has previously been achieved by covalent attachment to a variety of cell-penetrating peptides (CPPs). However, there is limited information on the relative performance of CPPs in delivering proteins to cells, specifically the cytosol and other intracellular locations. Here we use green fluorescent protein (GFP) as a model cargo to compare delivery capacity of five CPP sequences (Penetratin, R8, TAT, Transportan, Xentry) and cyclic derivatives in different human cell lines (HeLa, HEK, 10T1/2, HepG2) representing different tissues. Confocal microscopy analysis indicates that most fusion proteins when incubated with cells at 10 µM localise to endosomes. Quantification of cellular uptake by flow cytometry reveals that uptake depends on both cell type (10T1/2 > HepG2 > HeLa > HEK), and CPP sequence (Transportan > R8 > Penetratin≈TAT > Xentry). CPP sequence cyclisation or addition of a HA-sequence increased cellular uptake, but fluorescence was still contained in vesicles with no evidence of endosomal escape. Our results provide a guide to select CPP for endosomal/lysosomal delivery and a basis for developing more efficient CPPs in the future.

The rapid and selective regulation of a target protein within living cells that contain closely related family members is an outstanding challenge. Here we introduce genetically directed bioorthogonal ligand tethering (BOLT) and demonstrate selective inhibition (iBOLT) of protein function. In iBOLT, inhibitor-conjugate/target protein pairs are created where the target protein contains a genetically encoded unnatural amino acid with bioorthogonal reactivity and the inhibitor conjugate contains a complementary bioorthogonal group. iBOLT enables the first rapid and specific inhibition of MEK isozymes, and introducing photoisomerizable linkers in the inhibitor conjugate enables reversible, optical regulation of protein activity (photo-BOLT) in live mammalian cells. We demonstrate that a pan kinase inhibitor conjugate allows selective and rapid inhibition of the lymphocyte specific kinase, indicating the modularity and scalability of BOLT. We anticipate that BOLT will enable the rapid and selective regulation of diverse proteins for which no selective small-molecule ligands exist.

There has been growing interest in performing organocatalysis within a supramolecular system as a means of controlling reaction reactivity and stereoselectivity. Here, a protein is used as a host for iminium catalysis. A pyrrolidine moiety is covalently linked to biotin and introduced to the protein host streptavidin for organocatalytic activity. Whereas in traditional systems stereoselectivity is largely controlled by the substituents added to the organocatalyst, enantiomeric enrichment by the reported supramolecular system is completely controlled by the host. Also, the yield of the model reaction increases over 10-fold when streptavidin is included. A 1.1 Å crystal structure of the protein-catalyst complex and molecular simulations of a key intermediate reveal the chiral scaffold surrounding the organocatalytic reaction site. This work illustrates that proteins can be an excellent supramolecular host for driving stereoselective secondary amine organocatalysis.

Asparaginyl endopeptidases (AEP) are ideal for peptide and protein labeling. Its pairing with a simple chemical reaction significantly lowers the amount of label needed for effective bioconjugation.