Department of Biomedical Engineering, Duke University, Durham, NC, 27708, USA.
Nat Commun. 2024 May 2;15(1):3727. doi: 10.1038/s41467-024-47519-7.
We report the de novo design of small (<20 kDa) and highly soluble synthetic intrinsically disordered proteins (SynIDPs) that confer solubility to a fusion partner with minimal effect on the activity of the fused protein. To identify highly soluble SynIDPs, we create a pooled gene-library utilizing a one-pot gene synthesis technology to create a large library of repetitive genes that encode SynIDPs. We identify three small (<20 kDa) and highly soluble SynIDPs from this gene library that lack secondary structure and have high solvation. Recombinant fusion of these SynIDPs to three known inclusion body forming proteins rescue their soluble expression and do not impede the activity of the fusion partner, thereby eliminating the need for removal of the SynIDP tag. These findings highlight the utility of SynIDPs as solubility tags, as they promote the soluble expression of proteins in E. coli and are small, unstructured proteins that minimally interfere with the biological activity of the fused protein.
我们报告了新设计的小分子(<20 kDa)和高可溶性的合成无规卷曲蛋白质(SynIDPs),它们对融合蛋白的活性几乎没有影响,却能赋予融合伙伴可溶性。为了鉴定高可溶性的 SynIDPs,我们利用一锅基因合成技术创建了一个基因文库池,以创建一个大型的重复基因文库,这些基因编码 SynIDPs。我们从这个基因文库中鉴定出三个小分子(<20 kDa)和高可溶性的 SynIDPs,它们缺乏二级结构且具有高亲水性。这些 SynIDPs 与三种已知的包涵体形成蛋白的重组融合挽救了它们的可溶性表达,并且不阻碍融合伙伴的活性,从而消除了去除 SynIDP 标签的需要。这些发现突出了 SynIDPs 作为可溶性标签的实用性,因为它们促进了大肠杆菌中蛋白质的可溶性表达,而且它们是小分子、无结构的蛋白质,对融合蛋白的生物活性干扰最小。