Mapping Protein–Protein Interactions with Phage-Displayed Combinatorial Peptide Libraries and Alanine Scanning

One avenue for inferring the function of a protein is to learn what proteins it may bind to in the cell. Among the various methodologies, one way for doing so is to affinity select peptide ligands from a phage-displayed combinatorial peptide library and then to examine if the proteins that carry such peptide sequences interact with the target protein in the cell. With the protocols described in this chapter, a laboratory with skills in microbiology, molecular biology, and protein biochemistry can readily identify peptides in the library that bind selectively, and with micromolar affinity, to a given target protein on the time scale of 2 months. To illustrate this approach, we use a library of bacteriophage M13 particles, which display 12-mer combinatorial peptides, to affinity select different peptide ligands for two different targets, the SH3 domain of the human Lyn protein tyrosine kinase and a segment of the yeast serine/threonine protein kinase Cbk1. The binding properties of the selected peptide ligands are then dissected by sequence alignment, Kunkel mutagenesis, and alanine scanning. Finally, the peptide ligands can be used to predict cellular interacting proteins and serve as the starting point for drug discovery.