Exploiting the 21st amino acid—purifying and labeling proteins by selenolate targeting
- 29 September 2004
- journal article
- research article
- Published by Springer Nature in Nature Methods
- Vol. 1 (1) , 61-66
- https://doi.org/10.1038/nmeth707
Abstract
Selenium is essential to human life and occurs in selenoproteins as selenocysteine (Sec), the 21st amino acid. The selenium atom endows selenocysteine with unique biochemical properties, including a low pKa and a high reactivity with many electrophilic agents. Here we describe the introduction of selenocysteine into recombinant non-selenoproteins produced in Escherichia coli, as part of a small tetrapeptide motif at the C terminus. This selenocysteine-containing motif could subsequently be used as a protein tag for purification of the recombinant protein, selenolate-targeted labeling with fluorescent compounds or radiolabeling with either γ-emitting 75Se or short-lived positron emitters such as 11C. The results presented here thus show how a wide range of biotechnological applications can be developed starting from the insertion of selenocysteine into proteins.Keywords
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