Random circular permutation of genes and expressed polypeptide chains: application of the method to the catalytic chains of aspartate transcarbamoylase.

Recent studies on proteins whose N and C termini are in close proximity have demonstrated that folding of polypeptide chains and assembly of oligomers can be accomplished with circularly permuted chains. As yet no methodical study has been conducted to determine how extensively new termini can be introduced and where such termini cannot be tolerated. We have devised a procedure to generate random circular permutations of the catalytic chains of Escherichia coli aspartate transcarbamoylase (ATCase; EC 2.1.3.2) and to select clones that produce active or stable holoenzyme containing permuted chains. A tandem gene construct was made, based on the desired linkage between amino acid residues in the C- and N-terminal regions of the polypeptide chain, and this DNA was treated with a suitable restriction enzyme to yield a fragment containing the rearranged coding sequence for the chain. Circularization achieved with DNA ligase, followed by linearization at random with DNase I, and incorporation of the linearized, repaired, blunt-ended, rearranged genes into a suitable plasmid permitted the expression of randomly permuted polypeptide chains. The plasmid with appropriate stop codons also contained pyrI, the gene encoding the regulatory chain of ATCase. Colonies expressing detectable amounts of ATCase-like molecules containing permuted catalytic chains were identified by an immunoblot technique or by their ability to grow in the absence of pyrimidines in the growth medium. Sequencing of positive clones revealed a variety of novel circular permutations. Some had N and C termini within helices of the wild-type enzyme as well as deletions and insertions. Permutations were concentrated in the C-terminal domain and only few were detected in the N-terminal domain. The technique, which is adaptable generally to proteins whose N and C termini are near each other, can be of value in relating in vivo folding of nascent, growing polypeptide chains to in vitro renaturation of complete chains and determining the role of protein sequence in folding kinetics.