Protein Targeting Protocols

Master experimentalists describe, largely from the perspective of intracellular signaling, their best methods for detecting and analyzing the proteins and protein motifs involved in targeting interactions. The techniques range from basic methods that reveal the existence of targeting interactions and characterize physicochemical properties to those for analyzing the more structurally elaborate systems involved in the movement of molecules between cellular compartments, with examples taken from nuclear transport, clathrin-coated vesicle traffic, and secretory sorting. The themes of targeting domains, particularly the SH-2, SH-3, and PH domains, and the principal targeting of lipid modifications-myristoylation, reversible palmitoylation, prenylation - are fully explored. This book will serve well as a firm methodological foundation for laboratories newly entering this field and as an indispensable reference work for those already well-established in it.