Click-&-Go? Plus 405 OPP Protein Synthesis Assay Kit enables fast, sensitive, and non-radioactive detection of protein synthesis using fluorescence microscopy or high-content imaging. O-propargyl-puromycin (OPP), an analog of puromycin that contains a terminal alkyne group, enters the acceptor site of ribosomes and incorporates into nascent polypeptide chains. OPP is not an amino acid analog; thus, OPP can be added directly to cells in complete media (i.e., methionine-containing) or used to detect in vivo protein synthesis. OPP that is incorporated into newly translated proteins is detected with fluorescent azides though a fast, highly-specific, and mild click reaction.

Although protein synthesis is a conserved and essential cellular function, it is often regulated in a cell-type-specific manner to influence cell fate, growth and homeostasis. Most methods used to measure protein synthesis depend on metabolically labeling large numbers of cells with radiolabeled amino acids, stable isotope-labeled amino acids, bioorthogonal noncanonical amino acid tagging (L-azidohomoalanine or homopropargylglycine or their combination). Because these methods typically depend on specialized growth conditions, they have been largely restricted to yeast, bacteria and cell lines. Application of these techniques for investigating protein synthesis within mammalian systems in vivo has been challenging.

The use of O-propargyl-puromycin (OPP), an analog of puromycin that contains a terminal alkyne group, has facilitated the quantification of protein synthesis within individual cells in vivo. OPP enters the acceptor site of ribosomes and incorporates into nascent polypeptide chains. Unlike traditional methods mentioned above, OPP is not an amino acid analog; thus, OPP can be added directly to cells in complete media (i.e., methionine-containing) or used to detect in vivo protein synthesis. It also can be used with cell lines that are sensitive to media exchanges or incubation in methionine-free media. The combination of high cell permeability and signal-to-noise ratio makes OPP an ideal candidate compound to study nascent proteomes across a wide array of cellular types and conditions. The kit contains all of the components needed to detect incorporated OPP with blue-fluorescent AZDye 405 Azide Plus (Alexa Fluor? 405 equivalent), and blue-fluorescent Hoechst 33342 dye for nuclear staining. A sufficient amount of reagents is provided for imaging 25 coverslips or 250 wells using 96-well plates.