Department of Biotechnology
inStem (Institute for Stem Cell Science and Regenerative Medicine)

Automation aided optimization of cloning, expression and purification of enzymes of the bacterial sialic acid catabolic and sialylation pathways enzymes for structural studies.

Publication Type

Journal Article

Date of Publication

March 1, 2018

Journal

Microbial biotechnology

Volume/Issue

11/2

ISSN

1751-7915

The process of obtaining a well-expressing, soluble and correctly folded constructs can be made easier and quicker by automating the optimization of cloning, expression and purification. While there are many semiautomated pipelines available for cloning, expression and purification, there is hardly any pipeline that involves complete automation. Here, we achieve complete automation of all the steps involved in cloning and in vivo expression screening. This is demonstrated using 18 genes involved in sialic acid catabolism and the surface sialylation pathway. Our main objective was to clone these genes into a His-tagged Gateway vector, followed by their small-scale expression optimization in vivo. The constructs that showed best soluble expression were then selected for purification studies and scaled up for crystallization studies. Our technique allowed us to quickly find conditions for producing significant quantities of soluble proteins in Escherichia coli, their large-scale purification and successful crystallization of a number of these proteins. The method can be implemented in other cases where one needs to screen a large number of constructs, clones and expression vectors for successful recombinant production of functional proteins.

Alternate Journal

Microb Biotechnol

PubMed ID

29345069

PubMed Central ID

PMC5812244

Authors

Sneha Bairy
Lakshmi Narayanan Gopalan
Thanuja Gangi Setty
Sathya Srinivasachari
Lavanyaa Manjunath
Jay Prakash Kumar
Sai R Guntupalli
Sucharita Bose
Vinod Nayak
Swagatha Ghosh
Nitish Sathyanarayanan
Rhawnie Caing-Carlsson
Weixiao Yuan Wahlgren
Rosmarie Friemann
S Ramaswamy
Muniasamy Neerathilingam

Keywords

Gene Expression
Metabolic Networks and Pathways
Genetic Testing
N-Acetylneuraminic Acid
Automation, Laboratory
Cloning, Molecular
Enzymes
Recombinant Proteins
Escherichia coli