Progress of proximity labeling technology in membrane protein interaction

Membrane proteins, which play a critical role in various life processes, particularly in regulating cell-cell contact and signal transduction, are closely linked to cell differentiation and maturation. Therefore, it is of great theoretical and practical significance to develop a variety of methods to thoroughly explore the interactions between membrane proteins. In addition to traditional techniques such as immunoprecipitation, newly developed proximity labeling (PL) techniques have gradually become important means to study membrane protein interaction. PL methods are based on engineered enzymes fused with bait protein to catalyze small molecules, label neighboring target proteins, and detect the interactions by flow cytometry, mass spectrometry, confocal microscopic imaging, etc. This paper focuses on the recent developments in PL techniques for studying membrane protein interactions, with a prospect of the potential future directions for research in this area.