Class A β-lactamases as versatile scaffolds to create hybrid enzymes: applications from basic research to medicine.
Designing hybrid proteins is a major aspect of protein engineering and covers a very wide range of applications from basic research to medical applications. This review focuses on the use of class A β-lactamases as versatile scaffolds to design hybrid enzymes (referred to as β-lactamase hybrid proteins, BHPs) in which an exogenous peptide, protein or fragment thereof is inserted at various permissive positions. We discuss how BHPs can be specifically designed to create bifunctional proteins, to produce and to characterize proteins that are otherwise difficult to express, to determine the epitope of specific antibodies, to generate antibodies against nonimmunogenic epitopes, and to better understand the structure/function relationship of proteins.
Laboratory of Enzymology and Protein Folding, Centre for Protein Engineering, Institute of Chemistry, University of Liege, (Sart-Tilman) 4000 Liege, Belgium.
Céline
C
Huynen
Patrice
P
Filée
André
A
Matagne
Moreno
M
Galleni
Mireille
M
Dumoulin
D000906:Antibodies / Q000235:genetics / Q000276:immunology; D000939:Epitopes / Q000235:genetics* / Q000276:immunology; D006801:Humans; D015202:Protein Engineering; D017434:Protein Structure, Tertiary; D011993:Recombinant Fusion Proteins / Q000737:chemistry / Q000235:genetics*; D001618:beta-Lactamases / Q000737:chemistry / Q000235:genetics*
D000906:Antibodies; D000939:Epitopes; D011993:Recombinant Fusion Proteins; D001618:beta-Lactamases