GFP-complementation assay to detect functional CPP and protein delivery into living cells

Abstract Efficient cargo uptake is essential for cell-penetrating peptide (CPP) therapeutics, which deliver widely diverse cargoes by exploiting natural cell processes to penetrate the cell’s membranes. Yet most current CPP activity assays are hampered by limitations in assessing uptake, including confounding effects of conjugated fluorophores or ligands, indirect read-outs requiring secondary processing and difficulty in discriminating internalization from endosomally trapped cargo. Split-complementation Endosomal Escape (SEE) provides the first direct assay visualizing true cytoplasmic-delivery of proteins at biologically relevant concentrations. The SEE assay has minimal background, is amenable to high-throughput processes and adaptable to different transient and stable cell lines. This split-GFP-based platform can be useful to study transduction mechanisms, cellular imaging and characterizing novel CPPs as pharmaceutical delivery agents in the treatment of disease.