A streptavidin mutant containing a cysteine stretch that facilitates production of a variety of specific streptavidin conjugates.

The ability to produce specific streptavidin conjugates has been considerably enhanced by using a streptavidin mutant containing a cysteine stretch, in which sulfhydryl groups serve as unique conjugation sites. A streptavidin molecule containing five cysteine residues at its C-terminus, referred to as Stv-28, was efficiently expressed in Escherichia coli, and purified to homogeneity. Purified Stv-28 had full biotin-binding ability and formed a subunit tetramer. Reactive sulfhydryl groups of Stv-28, derived solely from the cysteine stretch, greatly facilitate the specific conjugation of partner molecules to streptavidin by simple sulfhydryl chemistry. In this manner, S-[14C]carboxymethylated streptavidin and a streptavidin-fluorescein conjugate were prepared. These conjugates contain almost twenty [14C]carboxymethyl groups and fluorescein molecules, respectively, per subunit tetramer, indicating that the sulfhydryl groups of the cysteine stretch are fully reactive. More importantly, these conjugates retain full biotin-binding ability and form subunit tetramers, suggesting that the fundamental properties of streptavidin would be unaffected by the conjugation of other partner molecules to the C-terminal cysteine stretch.