In vivo chemical crosslinking with disuccinimidyl suberate (DSS) (Thermo Fisher Scientific) was performed according to the manufacturer’s protocol and previous description with some modifications (Bofill-Cardona et al., 2000 (link); Zhao et al., 2011 (link)). Briefly, cells were transfected with indicated plasmids for 18 h, washed three times in phosphate buffered saline (PBS) with Ca2+/Mg2+, and incubated with freshly-prepared 1 mM DSS or DMSO (as control) in PBS with Ca2+/Mg2+ for 3 h at room temperature. The reaction was quenched by 50 mM Tris (pH 7.5) for 15 min at room temperature. The samples were dissolved in NuPAGE™ LDS sample buffer (4X) (Invitrogen) and analyzed by Western blotting.
In vivo chemical crosslinking with bismaleimidohexane (BMH) (Thermo Fisher Scientific) was carried out according to the manufacturer’s procedure. BMH powder was dissolved firstly in DMSO and mixed with PBS to a 50 µM final concentration, and incubated with cultured cells at room temperature. This reaction was quenched by 50 mM dithiothreitol (DTT) at different time points. After removing the reaction solution, treated cells were added to NuPAGE™ LDS sample buffer (4X) (Invitrogen) and subjected to further Western blotting analysis.