Lipid droplet-targeted APEX proteome

Lipid droplet (LD) function is regulated by a complement of integral and peripheral proteins that associate with the LD phospholipid monolayer. Defining the composition of the LD proteome has remained a challenge due to the presence of contaminating proteins in LD-enriched buoyant fractions. To overcome this limitation, we developed a proximity labeling strategy that exploits LD-targeted APEX2 to biotinylate LD proteins in living cells. Application of this approach to U2OS and Huh7 cells identified the vast majority of previously validated LD proteins, excluded common contaminating proteins, and revealed new LD proteins.