Engineered protein switches have been widely applied
in cell-based
protein sensors and point-of-care diagnosis for the rapid and simple
analysis of a wide variety of proteins, metabolites, nucleic acids,
and enzymatic activities. Currently, these protein switches are based
on two main types of switching mechanisms to transduce the target
binding event to a quantitative signal, through a change in the optical
properties of fluorescent molecules and the activation of enzymatic
activities. In this paper, we introduce a new affinity-tunable protein
switch strategy in which the binding of a small-molecule target with
the protein activates the streptavidin–biotin interaction to
generate a readout signal. In the absence of a target, the biotinylated
protein switch forms a closed conformation where the biotin is positioned
in close proximity to the protein, imposing a large steric hindrance
to prevent the effective binding with streptavidin. In the presence
of the target molecule, this steric hindrance is removed, thereby
exposing the biotin for streptavidin binding to produce strong fluorescent
signals. With this modular sensing concept, various sulfonamide, methotrexate,
and trimethoprim drugs can be selectively detected on the cell surface
of native and genetically engineered cells using different fluorescent
dyes and detection techniques.