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Title: Design and applications of a clamp for Green Fluorescent Protein with picomolar affinity

Journal Article · · Scientific Reports
 [1]; ORCiD logo [2];  [2];  [2];  [3]; ORCiD logo [4]; ORCiD logo [2]
  1. Univ. of Zurich (Switzerland). Dept. of Biochemistry; Genentech, San Francisco, CA (United States). Dept. of Early Discovery Biochemistry
  2. Univ. of Zurich (Switzerland). Dept. of Biochemistry
  3. Univ. of Zurich (Switzerland). Dept. of Biochemistry; Federal Inst. of Technology, Zurich (Switzerland). Dept. of Biosystems Science and Engineering
  4. Univ. of Zurich (Switzerland). Dept. of Biochemistry; SLAC National Accelerator Lab., Menlo Park, CA (United States). Linac Coherent Light Source (LCLS)

Green fluorescent protein (GFP) fusions are pervasively used to study structures and processes. Specific GFP-binders are thus of great utility for detection, immobilization or manipulation of GFP-fused molecules. We determined structures of two designed ankyrin repeat proteins (DARPins), complexed with GFP, which revealed different but overlapping epitopes. Here in this paper we show a structure-guided design strategy that, by truncation and computational reengineering, led to a stable construct where both can bind simultaneously: by linkage of the two binders, fusion constructs were obtained that “wrap around” GFP, have very high affinities of about 10–30 pM, and extremely slow off-rates. They can be natively produced in E. coli in very large amounts, and show excellent biophysical properties. Their very high stability and affinity, facile site-directed functionalization at introduced unique lysines or cysteines facilitate many applications. As examples, we present them as tight yet reversible immobilization reagents for surface plasmon resonance, as fluorescently labelled monomeric detection reagents in flow cytometry, as pull-down ligands to selectively enrich GFP fusion proteins from cell extracts, and as affinity column ligands for inexpensive large-scale protein purification. We have thus described a general design strategy to create a “clamp” from two different high-affinity repeat proteins, even if their epitopes overlap.

Research Organization:
SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory (SLAC), Menlo Park, CA (United States)
Sponsoring Organization:
USDOE; Schweizerische Nationalfonds
Grant/Contract Number:
AC02-76SF00515; 310030B_166676
OSTI ID:
1419739
Journal Information:
Scientific Reports, Vol. 7, Issue 1; ISSN 2045-2322
Publisher:
Nature Publishing GroupCopyright Statement
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English
Citation Metrics:
Cited by: 38 works
Citation information provided by
Web of Science

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Cited By (12)

Strategies for Post-Translational Control of Protein Expression and Their Applications journal September 2021
Structural analysis of biological targets by host:guest crystal lattice engineering journal October 2019
In vivo assembly and large-scale purification of a GPCR - Gα fusion with Gβγ, and characterization of the active complex text January 2019
DARPins: Promising Scaffolds for Theranostics journal December 2019
Facile Site-Specific Multiconjugation Strategies in Recombinant Proteins Produced in Bacteria text January 2019
In vivo assembly and large-scale purification of a GPCR - Gα fusion with Gβγ, and characterization of the active complex journal January 2019
Tunable light and drug induced depletion of target proteins journal January 2020
DARPins recognize mTFP1 as novel reagents for in vitro and in vivo protein manipulations journal September 2018
Advances in targeted degradation of endogenous proteins journal April 2019
Facile Site-Specific Multiconjugation Strategies in Recombinant Proteins Produced in Bacteria book January 2019
Extreme stability in de novo-designed repeat arrays is determined by unusually stable short-range interactions journal June 2018
The Role of Interleukin-37 in the Pathogenesis of Allergic Diseases journal December 2019

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