Luciferase Complementation Assay for Protein-Protein Interactions in Plants

Constitutive and dynamic protein-protein interactions are fundamental to all aspects of cellular processes. Compared to other techniques measuring protein-protein interactions in plants, the luciferase complementation assay has a number of advantages: it detects plant protein-protein interactions in real time, requires little hands-on manipulation of samples, is highly quantitative, has extremely low background, and can be easily scaled up for high-throughput interactome studies. Here, we describe a protocol that includes two alternate data collection methods to quantify luminescence results based on Agrobacterium-mediated transient luciferase expression in Nicotiana benthamiana. One data collection method employs a charge-coupled device imaging system that allows the interactions to be presented as images, and the other employs a luminometer, which enables the assay to be conducted in a 96-well plate. Technical parameters related to frequently encountered problems and common errors, presented here, are important for performing this assay successfully. © 2018 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc.