A combined yeast/bacterial two-hybrid system (YBTH): development and evaluation

Two-hybrid screening is a standard methodology to identify and characterize protein-protein interactions that has become an integral component of many proteomic investigations. The twohybrid system was initially developed using yeast as a host organism. However, bacterial two-hybrid systems have also become common laboratory tools and are preferred in some circumstances, although yeast and bacterial two-hybrid systems have never been directly compared. We describe here the development of a unified yeast and bacterial two-hybrid (YBTH) system in which a single bait expression plasmid is used in both organismal milieus. We use a series of leucine zipper fusion proteins of known affinities to compare interaction detection using both systems. While both twohybrid systems detected interactions within a comparable range of interaction affinities, each demonstrated unique advantages. The yeast system produced quantitative readout over a greater dynamic range than that observed with bacteria. However, the phenomenon of “auto-activation” by baits was less problematic in the bacterial system than in yeast. Both systems identified physiological interactors for a library screen with a cI-Ras test bait; however, non-identical interactors were obtained in yeast and bacterial screens. The ability to rapidly shift between yeast and bacterial systems provided by these new reagents should provide a marked advantage for two-hybrid investigations. In addition, the modified expression vectors should be useful for any application requiring facile expression of a protein of interest in both yeast and bacteria.