Marble Details - Dead end

Marble Details - Dead end

The Venus Trap: intrinsic affinity of split-fluorophore halves drives false-positive signal

The Venus Trap: intrinsic affinity of split-fluorophore halves drives false-positive signal

Date of publication:
Version 2

Authors

Authors

Margaux G. Quiniou [1,*]; Sebastian Jessberger [1,#]
Authors
Linked article information
Authors Affiliation
The epigenetic landscape of living cells is dynamic and heterogeneous. To track these changes with high temporal resolution, fluorescent biosensors can be powerful tools. We aimed to use the split-Venus system to monitor the dynamic changes in DNA methylation levels at the major satellite repeat regions. While the individual components of the biosensor showed specificity for their targets, key control experiments demonstrated that the combined biosensor constructs failed to respond to global DNA methylation changes. Specifically, the high intrinsic affinity of the split-Venus halves appeared to drive strong false-positive signal. The observed non-specific complementation highlights a limitation of split fluorophore systems, particularly regarding their need for careful construct testing and optimization.

Keywords

Split-Venus system; Bimolecular Fluorescence Complementation (BiFC); DNA methylation; Epigenetic biosensor; False-positive signal
Are you testing a hypothesis that appears in the article?
Is the hypothesis confirmed?
Abstract
The epigenetic landscape of living cells is dynamic and heterogeneous. To track these changes with high temporal resolution, fluorescent biosensors can be powerful tools. We aimed to use the split-Venus system to monitor the dynamic changes in DNA methylation levels at the major satellite repeat regions. While the individual components of the biosensor showed specificity for their targets, key control experiments demonstrated that the combined biosensor constructs failed to respond to global DNA methylation changes. Specifically, the high intrinsic affinity of the split-Venus halves appeared to drive strong false-positive signal. The observed non-specific complementation highlights a limitation of split fluorophore systems, particularly regarding their need for careful construct testing and optimization.

Keywords

Split-Venus system; Bimolecular Fluorescence Complementation (BiFC); DNA methylation; Epigenetic biosensor; False-positive signal
Are you testing a hypothesis that appears in the article?
Is the hypothesis confirmed?
Abstract
The epigenetic landscape of living cells is dynamic and heterogeneous. To track these changes with high temporal resolution, fluorescent biosensors can be powerful tools. We aimed to use the split-Venus system to monitor the dynamic changes in DNA methylation levels at the major satellite repeat regions. While the individual components of the biosensor showed specificity for their targets, key control experiments demonstrated that the combined biosensor constructs failed to respond to global DNA methylation changes. Specifically, the high intrinsic affinity of the split-Venus halves appeared to drive strong false-positive signal. The observed non-specific complementation highlights a limitation of split fluorophore systems, particularly regarding their need for careful construct testing and optimization.

Keywords

Split-Venus system; Bimolecular Fluorescence Complementation (BiFC); DNA methylation; Epigenetic biosensor; False-positive signal
Are you testing a hypothesis that appears in the article?
Is the hypothesis confirmed?
Marble ID:
Marble ID:
MR0002V2
Marble DOI:
Marble DOI:
10.66633/ra20260002
Status:
Status:
Accepted
Accepted

Version history

You are viewing version 2

Copyright

© 2026, Quiniou et al.
This Marble is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use and redistribution provided that the original author and source are credited.

Copyright

© 2025, Hernández-Malmierca et al.
This Marble is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use and redistribution provided that the original author and source are credited.