This artwork was inspired by the ancient Chinese legend of "The Cowherd and the Weaver Girl," where two star-crossed lovers are reunited once a year by a bridge of magpies. Here, the Cowherd and Weaver Girl represent two non-interacting proteins (e.g., actin and YAP1), separated by the Milky Way—symbolizing the complex cellular environment. The magpie bridge, formed by STUPPIT components with Pup(E) as the body and Split-TurboID fragments as glowing wings, enables their connection. Soaring lanterns released from the bridge represent biotin-labeled proximal proteins (e.g., AMOT), illuminating the functional interactome between the once-distant proteins. Xie et al. demonstrate how the STUPPIT system acts as a molecular "magpie bridge," enabling proximity labeling and revealing functional interactomes between proteins that do not directly bind—just as the magpie bridge reunites the star-crossed lovers. Artwork by graduate student Xin Li.
Despite advances in #ProximityLabeling tools, we can't capture intermediary proteins that bridge two associated non-interacting proteins. STUPPIT is a novel method to label intermediary proteins between two non-interacting partners in signaling pathways @plosbiology.org 🧪 plos.io/4ab6YwQ
