EXPRESSION VECTORS FOR AFFINITY PURIFICATION AND RADIOLABELING OF PROTEINS USING ESCHERICHIA-COLI AS HOST

We have constructed two convenient vectors to produce foreign proteins in Escherichia coli. The first vector was developed to produce histidine (His)-tagged fusion proteins. In addition to encoding six contiguous His residues, it contains three unique restriction sites that allow cloning of a blunt-ended DNA fragment in three different reading frames. Therefore, one can clone any gene of interest in this vector to make a fusion protein tagged with six His at the N terminus. The His-tag allows purification of the fusion protein to almost homogeneity by a nickel-chelating column in a single step. The second vector is a derivative of the first vector; it encodes two tandem phosphorylation sites for heart muscle kinase (HMK) immediately downstream from the His residues. Therefore, the resulting fusion protein can be radiolabeled using [gamma-P-32]ATP and HMK in vitro. The labeled protein can then be used as a probe to detect protein-protein interaction.