title: Tyrosine-based "activatable pro-tag": enzyme-catalyzed protein capture and release.
abstract: Protein recovery is often achieved by a series of capture and release steps that often involve chromatographic binding and elution. We report an alternative, non-chromatographic, capture and release approach that employs enzymes and the stimuli-responsive polysaccharide chitosan. We capture our protein using the enzyme tyrosinase that oxidizes accessible tyrosine residues of the protein and "activates" these residues for covalent capture (i.e., conjugation) onto chitosan. Using fusions of green fluorescent protein (GFP) we observed that: (i) enzymatic activation is required for protein capture to chitosan; and (ii) capture is enhanced (approximately five-fold) by engineering the protein to have a penta-tyrosine fusion tag that provides additional accessible tyrosine residues for enzymatic activation. Because the fusion tag appears to be the primary site for capture, and capture requires activation, we designate penta-tyrosine as a "pro-tag." The captured GFP-chitosan conjugate possesses the pH-responsive solubility that is characteristic of chitosan. We exploit this pH-responsive solubility to facilitate purification of the captured protein. Two enzymatic methods were explored to release the captured GFP from the chitosan conjugate. The first method employs enterokinase (EK) to cleave the protein at an engineered EK-cleavage site. The second method employs chitosanase to hydrolyze the chitosan backbone. Using GFP as a model protein, we demonstrated that enzymatic capture and release provides a simple, non-chromatographic means to recover proteins directly from cell lysates.
authors.affiliation: Center for Biosystems Research, University of Maryland Biotechnology Institute, 5115 Plant Sciences Building, College Park, Maryland 20742, USA.
authors.forename: Angela T
authors.initials: AT
authors.lastname: Lewandowski
authors.forename: David A
authors.initials: DA
authors.lastname: Small
authors.forename: Tianhong
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Chen
authors.forename: Gregory F
authors.initials: GF
authors.lastname: Payne
authors.forename: William E
authors.initials: WE
authors.lastname: Bentley
mesh_terms: D001709:Biotechnology / Q000379:methods*; D011232:Chemical Precipitation; D048271:Chitosan / Q000737:chemistry / Q000378:metabolism; D002846:Chromatography, Affinity; D004765:Enteropeptidase / Q000737:chemistry / Q000378:metabolism; D004798:Enzymes / Q000737:chemistry / Q000378:metabolism*; D004926:Escherichia coli / Q000235:genetics; D006026:Glycoside Hydrolases / Q000737:chemistry / Q000378:metabolism*; D049452:Green Fluorescent Proteins / Q000235:genetics / Q000378:metabolism; D006639:Histidine / Q000235:genetics; D014442:Monophenol Monooxygenase / Q000737:chemistry / Q000378:metabolism; D009532:Nickel / Q000737:chemistry; D009842:Oligopeptides / Q000235:genetics; D010455:Peptides / Q000235:genetics / Q000378:metabolism*; D011993:Recombinant Fusion Proteins / Q000235:genetics / Q000302:isolation & purification* / Q000378:metabolism
chemical_list: D004798:Enzymes; D009842:Oligopeptides; D010455:Peptides; D011993:Recombinant Fusion Proteins; D049452:Green Fluorescent Proteins; C033223:polyhistidine; C017663:polytyrosine; D006639:Histidine; D009532:Nickel; D048271:Chitosan; D014442:Monophenol Monooxygenase; D006026:Glycoside Hydrolases; C019868:chitosanase; D004765:Enteropeptidase