Intraspecies pheromone signaling regulated by proteases is critical for fungi procreation. The fungal aspartyl protease Bar1 was shown to have unique substrate specificity of important implications in fungal evolution. LifeTein synthesized substrate peptides of Bar1, dual-tagged with DABCYL and EDANS, from the sequence of α pheromone, the native target of Bar1. Referred to as internally quenched or IQ peptides, they were used in fluorescence resonance energy transfer (FRET) assays to study the enzyme kinetics of Bar1.
LifeTein’s Internally Quenched Peptides
mBio 6(6):e01604-15. doi:10.1128/mBio.01604-15. Evolutionary selection on barrier activity: Bar1 is an aspartyl protease with novel substrate specificity.