Single-step purification of polypeptides expressed in Escherichia coli as fusions with glutathione S-transferase.
Plasmid expression vectors have been constructed that direct the synthesis of foreign polypeptides in Escherichia coli as fusions with the C terminus of Sj26, a 26-kDa glutathione S-transferase (GST; EC 2.5.1.18) encoded by the parasitic helminth Schistosoma japonicum. In the majority of cases, fusion proteins are soluble in aqueous solutions and can be purified from crude bacterial lysates under non-denaturing conditions by affinity chromatography on immobilised glutathione. Using batch wash procedures several fusion proteins can be purified in parallel in under 2 h with yields of up to 15 micrograms protein/ml of culture. The vectors have been engineered so that the GST carrier can be cleaved from fusion proteins by digestion with site-specific proteases such as thrombin or blood coagulation factor Xa, following which, the carrier and any uncleaved fusion protein can be removed by absorption on glutathione-agarose. This system has been used successfully for the expression and purification of more than 30 different eukaryotic polypeptides.
D000595:Amino Acid Sequence; D000818:Animals; D001483:Base Sequence; D003001:Cloning, Molecular; D004926:Escherichia coli / Q000235:genetics*; D005796:Genes; D005822:Genetic Vectors; D005982:Glutathione Transferase / Q000235:genetics / Q000302:isolation & purification*; D008969:Molecular Sequence Data; D010957:Plasmids; D011993:Recombinant Fusion Proteins / Q000302:isolation & purification*; D011994:Recombinant Proteins / Q000302:isolation & purification*; D012549:Schistosoma japonicum / Q000201:enzymology / Q000235:genetics
D011993:Recombinant Fusion Proteins; D011994:Recombinant Proteins; D005982:Glutathione Transferase