Macrocyclic peptides and peptide-based structures have attracted significant interest as a source of chemical probes and therapeutic agents. While peptides and peptidomimetics in rigidified configurations can be prepared synthetically, genetic encoding offers the advantage to couple the creation of vast chemical libraries (10–10) with ultrahigh-throughput screeningmethods. Notable approaches in...

Previously, we reported a non-chromatographic protein purification method exploiting the highly specific interaction between the dockerin and cohesin domains from Clostridium thermocellum and the reversible aggregation property of elastin-like polypeptide (ELP) to provide fast and cost-effective protein purification. However, the bound dockerin-intein tag cannot be completely dissociated from t...

The success of genome sequencing has heightened the demand for new means to manipulate proteins. An especially desirable goal is the ability to modify a target protein at a specific site with a functional group of orthogonal reactivity. Here, we achieve that goal by exploiting the intrinsic electrophilicity of the thioester intermediate formed during intein-mediated protein splicing. Detailed k...

Two intein endonucleases, denoted PI- Pko I and PI- Pko II, in the DNA polymerase gene of the hyperthermophilic archaeon Pyrococcus kodakaraensis KOD1 were expressed in Escherichia coli and the recombinant endonucleases were characterized. Both endonucleases were thermostable and cleaved their intein-less DNA sequences leaving four base 3'-hydroxyl overhangs. PI-Pko I exhibited 22 times higher ...

BACKGROUND Protein trans-splicing by naturally occurring split DnaE inteins is used for protein ligation of foreign peptide fragments. In order to widen biotechnological applications of protein trans-splicing, it is highly desirable to have split inteins with shorter C-terminal fragments, which can be chemically synthesized. PRINCIPAL FINDINGS We report the identification of new functional sp...

The introduction of non-natural amino acid residues or modules into proteins provides a new means to explore the basis for conformational stability, folding/unfolding behavior, or biological function. We exploited intein-mediated protein ligation to produce a semisynthetic ribonuclease A. Of the 124 residues of RNase A, residues 1-94 were linked to an intein. After expression of the fusion prot...

287 ©2011 Society For Biomaterials

Being able to coordinate co-expression of multiple proteins is necessary for a variety of important applications such as assembly of protein complexes, trait stacking, and metabolic engineering. Currently only few options are available for multiple recombinant protein co-expression, and most of them are not applicable to both prokaryotic and eukaryotic hosts. Here, we report a new polyprotein v...

BACKGROUND Site-specific protein labeling or modification can facilitate the characterization of proteins with respect to their structure, folding, and interaction with other proteins. However, current methods of site-specific protein labeling are few and with limitations, therefore new methods are needed to satisfy the increasing need and sophistications of protein labeling. METHODOLOGY A me...

Intein-mediated expressed protein ligation (EPL) permits the site-specific chemical customization of proteins. While traditional techniques have used purified, soluble proteins, we have extended these methods to release and modify intein fusion proteins expressed on the yeast surface, thereby eliminating the need for soluble protein expression and purification. To this end, we sought to simulta...