Visualization of Ras-PI3K interaction in the endosome using BiFC

Recent studies indicate the importance of spatiotemporal regulation in the diversity and specificity of intracellular signaling. Here, we show that Ras-PI3K signaling plays an important role in the local regulation of phosphatidylinositol metabolism in the endosome through live-cell imaging by using a bimolecular fluorescence complementation technique, in which molecular interaction is indicated by fluorescence emission. Using several possible combinations of Ras and the Ras-binding domain, we identified an optimal set of probe molecules that yielded the most significant increase in fluorescence intensity between the active and inactive forms of Ras. This combination revealed that, among the Ras effectors tested, phosphatidylinositol 3-kinase (PI3K) was specifically implicated in signaling in the endosome. We also found that full length PI3K was recruited to the endosome in EGF- and Ras-dependent manners, which appears to be essential for the activation of PI3K in this compartment. Taken together, these findings demonstrate that the spatiotemporal regulation of Ras-PI3K signaling may dictate the activation of PI3K and subsequent downstream signaling in the endosome.