Prokaryotic Ubiquitin-Like ThiS Fusion Enhances the Heterologous Protein Overexpression and Aggregation in Escherichia coli
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No Canadian affiliation. An affiliation-only frame — the usual design — would never have seen this work. It is one of the works that make the case for inverting the frame.
Post-publication record
- Nature
- Retraction
- Reason
- Author Unresponsive;Concerns/Issues about Data;Concerns/Issues about Image;Original Data and/or Images not Provided and/or not Available;Unreliable Results and/or Conclusions;
- Date
- 3/28/2022 0:00
- Flagged by OpenAlex?
- Yes
Source: Retraction Watch, joined by DOI. OpenAlex records retraction as is_retracted, a boolean over a state space with at least four values, so it cannot express an expression of concern, a correction or a reinstatement — it reports them as false, which reads as “fine”.
Abstract
Fusion tags are commonly employed to enhance target protein expression, improve their folding and solubility, and reduce protein degradation in expression of recombinant proteins. Ubiquitin (Ub) and SUMO are highly conserved small proteins in eukaryotes, and frequently used as fusion tags in prokaryotic expression. ThiS, a smaller sulfur-carrier protein involved in thiamin synthesis, is conserved among most prokaryotic species. The structural similarity between ThiS and Ub provoked us into expecting that the former could be used as a fusion tag. Hence, ThiS was fused to insulin A and B chains, murine Ribonuclease Inhibitor (mRI) and EGFP, respectively. When induced in Escherichia coli, ThiS-fused insulin A and B chains were overexpressed in inclusion bodies, and to higher levels in comparison to the same proteins fused with Ub. On the contrast, ThiS fusion of mRI, an unstable protein, resulted in enhanced degradation that was not alleviated in protease-deficient strains. While the degradation of Ub- and SUMO-fused mRI was less and seemed protease-dependent. Enhanced degradation of mRI did not occur for the fusions with half-molecules of ThiS. When ThiS-tag was fused to the C-terminus of EGFP, higher expression, predominantly in inclusion bodies, was observed again. It was further found that ThiS fusion of EGFP significantly retarded its refolding process. These results indicated that prokaryotic ThiS is able to promote the expression of target proteins in E. coli, but enhanced degradation may occur in case of unstable targets. Unlike eukaryotic Ub-based tags usually increase the solubility and folding of proteins, ThiS fusion enhances the expression by augmenting the formation of inclusion bodies, probably through retardation of the folding of target proteins.
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The record
- Venue
- PLoS ONE
- Topic
- Biochemical and Molecular Research
- Field
- Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology
- Canadian institutions
- —
- Funders
- Institute of GeneticsKeio University
- Keywords
- Escherichia coliFusion proteinInclusion bodiesUbiquitinProtein foldingProtein degradationBiochemistryBiologyHeterologousChemistryRecombinant DNAGene
- Has abstract in OpenAlex
- yes