cytoDRiVE Platform

For a particular protein of interest, Obsidian engineers a gene cassette with a DRD tag, which is then packaged and inserted into the cell. The cell produces fusion protein consisting of the protein to be regulated, fused to a DRD, which is stabilized in the presence of a small molecule ligand. The stabilized fusion protein can be expressed intracellularly, membrane-bound or secreted. In the absence of the small molecule ligand, the DRD assumes a disordered conformation that is recognized by the quality control mechanisms of the cell, resulting in degradation of the fusion protein by the proteasome.

Obsidian has a growing library of internally discovered DRDs of varying sizes and purposes, and Obsidian’s cytoDRiVE® Discovery Platform enables rapid optimization of tunable and functional proteins. We have developed an extensive synthetic biology engineering toolkit to optimize protein functionality in any cell type, including but not limited to, type I/II membrane proteins, membrane-tethered cytokines, intracellular proteins, secreted proteins and genome editing proteins.