Single-molecule analysis of epidermal growth factor signaling that leads to ultrasensitive calcium response.

Quantitative relationships between inputs and outputs of signaling systems are fundamental information for the understanding of the mechanism of signal transduction. Here we report the correlation between the number of epidermal growth factor (EGF) bindings and the response probability of intracellular calcium elevation. Binding of EGF molecules and changes of intracellular calcium concentration were measured for identical HeLa human epithelial cells. It was found that 300 molecules of EGF were enough to induce calcium response in half of the cells. This number is quite small compared to the number of EGF receptors (EGFR) expressed on the cell surface (50,000). There was a sigmoidal correlation between the response probability and the number of EGF bindings, meaning an ultrasensitive reaction. Analysis of the cluster size distribution of EGF demonstrated that dimerization of EGFR contributes to this switch-like ultrasensitive response. Single-molecule analysis revealed that EGF bound faster to clusters of EGFR than to monomers. This property should be important for effective formation of signaling dimers of EGFR under very small numbers of EGF bindings and suggests that the expression of excess amounts of EGFR on the cell surface is required to prepare predimers of EGFR with a large association rate constant to EGF.

Total internal reflection fluorescence microscopy for single-molecule imaging in living cells.

Marvelous background rejection in total internal reflection fluorescence microscopy (TIR-FM) has made it possible to visualize single-fluorophores in living cells. Cell signaling proteins including peptide hormones, membrane receptors, small G proteins, cytoplasmic kinases as well as small signaling compounds have been conjugated with single chemical fluorophore or tagged with green fluorescent proteins and visualized in living cells. In this review, the reasons why single-molecule analysis is essential for studies of intracellular protein systems such as cell signaling system are discussed, the instrumentation of TIR-FM for single-molecule imaging in living cells is explained, and how single molecule visualization has been used in cell biology is illustrated by way of two examples: signaling of epidermal growth factor in mammalian cells and chemotaxis of Dictyostelium amoeba along a cAMP gradient. Single-molecule analysis is an ideal method to quantify the parameters of reaction dynamics and kinetics of unitary processes within intracellular protein systems. Knowledge of these parameters is crucial for the understanding of the molecular mechanisms underlying intracellular events, thus single-molecule imaging in living cells will be one of the major technologies in cellular nanobiology.

Optical bioimaging: from living tissue to a single molecule: single-molecule visualization of cell signaling processes of epidermal growth factor receptor.

Single-molecule imaging is an ideal technology to study molecular mechanisms of biological reactions in vitro. Recently, this technology has been extended to real-time observation of fluorescent dye-labeled molecules in living cells. Total internal reflection fluorescence microscopy is the major technique for this purpose. Using this technique, we have studied the process of early signal transduction of epidermal growth factor (EGF) in single molecules: binding of EGF to its receptor (EGFR) on the cell surface, dimerization of EGFR induced by binding of EGF, fluctuation of the structure of EGFR clusters, activation of EGFR through tyrosine phosphorylations on its cytoplasmic domain, and recognition of activated EGFR by a cytoplasmic adaptor protein, Grb2. EGF induces intracellular calcium response, sometimes caused by less than one hundred EGF molecules. Single-molecule studies suggested that this highly sensitive response to EGF was due to the amplification of the EGFR signal using dynamic clustering, reorganization of the dimers, and lateral mobility of EGFR on the cell surface. Through these studies, single-molecule analysis has proven to be a powerful technology to analyze intracellular protein systems.