Cell-type-specific quantification of protein synthesis in vivo

Although protein synthesis is a conserved and essential cellular function, it is often regulated in a cell-type-specific manner to influence cell fate, growth and homeostasis. Most methods used to measure protein synthesis depend on metabolically labeling large numbers of cells with radiolabeled amino acids or amino acid analogs. Because these methods typically depend on specialized growth conditions, they have been largely restricted to yeast, bacteria and cell lines. Application of these techniques to investigating protein synthesis within mammalian systems in vivo has been challenging. The synthesis of O-propargyl-puromycin (OP-Puro), an analog of puromycin that contains a terminal alkyne group, has facilitated the quantification of protein synthesis within individual cells in vivo. OP-Puro enters the acceptor site of ribosomes and incorporates into nascent polypeptide chains. Incorporated OP-Puro can be detected through a click-chemistry reaction that links it to a fluorescently tagged azide molecule. In this protocol, we describe how to administer OP-Puro to mice, obtain cells of interest (here, we use bone marrow cells) just 1 h later, and quantify the amount of protein synthesized per hour by flow cytometry on the basis of OP-Puro incorporation. We have used this approach to show that hematopoietic stem cells (HSCs) exhibit an unusually low rate of protein synthesis relative to other hematopoietic cells, and it can be easily adapted to quantify cell-type-specific rates of protein synthesis across diverse mammalian tissues in vivo. Measurement of protein synthesis within bone marrow cells in a cohort of six mice can be achieved in 8–10 h.