The half-life assay by bleach-chase is applicable to fluorescently tagged proteins and can be applied to multiple proteins and time points in living cells. Furthermore, this method is suitable for high-throughput protein half-life determination, making it easier to screen candidate protein drugs based on their pharmacokinetic properties.
In recent years, many groups have used bleach-chase to determine the half-lives of proteins in a variety of cells, particularly in cancer research. Some researchers used this approach to measure endogenous protein half-life in cancer cells and compare different proteins' half-life variation in the presence of chemotherapeutic drugs, and new methodologies may aid in understanding how the cell dynamically controls its proteome.