Geoffrey S. Waldo

Protein tagging and detection with engineered self-assembling fragments of green fluorescent protein

Existing protein tagging and detection methods are powerful but have drawbacks. Split protein tags can perturb protein solubility or may not work in living cells. Green fluorescent protein (GFP) fusions can misfold or exhibit altered processing. Fluorogenic biarsenical FLaSH or ReASH substrates overcome many of these limitations but require a polycysteine tag motif, a reducing environment and cell transfection or permeabilization. An ideal protein tag would be genetically encoded, would work both in vivo and in vitro, would provide a sensitive analytical signal and would not require external chemical reagents or substrates. One way to accomplish this might be with a split GFP, but the GFP fragments reported thus far are large and fold poorly, require chemical ligation or fused interacting partners to force their association, or require coexpression or co-refolding to produce detectable folded and fluorescent GFP. We have engineered soluble, self-associating fragments of GFP that can be used to tag and detect either soluble or insoluble proteins in living cells or cell lysates. The split GFP system is simple and does not change fusion protein solubility.

Engineering soluble proteins for structural genomics

Structural genomics has the ambitious goal of delivering three-dimensional structural information on a genome-wide scale. Yet only a small fraction of natural proteins are suitable for structure determination because of bottlenecks such as poor expression, aggregation, and misfolding of proteins, and difficulties in solubilization and crystallization. We propose to overcome these bottlenecks by producing soluble, highly expressed proteins that are derived from and closely related to their natural homologs. Here we demonstrate the utility of this approach by using a green fluorescent protein (GFP) folding reporter assay to evolve an enzymatically active, soluble variant of a hyperthermophilic protein that is normally insoluble when expressed in Escherichia coli, and determining its structure by X-ray crystallography. Analysis of the structure provides insight into the substrate specificity of the enzyme and the improved solubility of the variant.

Sulfur speciation in heavy petroleums: Information from X-ray absorption near-edge structure

Abstract The chemical speciation of sulfur in heavy petroleums, petroleum source rock extracts, and source rock pyrolysis products was studied using X-ray absorption near-edge structure (XANES) spectroscopy. The good energy resolution (ca. 0.5 eV) at the sulfur K edge and the strong dependence of XANES on the sulfur environment combine to give excellent sensitivity to changes in the electronic and structural environment of the sulfur. This has permitted identification and approximate quantitation of different classes of sulfur-containing compounds (e.g., sulfur, sulfides (including disulfides and polysulfides as a group), thiophenes, sulfoxides, sulfones, sulfinic acids, sulfonic acids, and sulfate) in a series of petroleums and petroleum source rocks. Our results indicate that the sulfur speciation of geological samples can be correlated with differences in source depositional environment, thermal maturity, and aromaticity. We report organosulfur compositions for the asphaltene, maltene, and liquid Chromatographie fractions of two sulfur-rich oils. In addition, we find that the organosulfur species in some, but not all, oils are subject to oxidation upon storage and thus may also be susceptible to oxidation in shallow reservoirs exposed to oxic waters. This work illustrates the utility of XANES as a direct spectroscopic probe for the quantitative determination of sulfur species in geological samples.

Genetic screens and directed evolution for protein solubility.

Overexpressed proteins are often insoluble, and can be recalcitrant to conventional solubilization techniques such as refolding. Directed evolution methods, in which protein diversity libraries are screened for soluble variants, offer an alternative route to obtaining soluble proteins. Recently, several new protein solubility screens have been developed that do not require structural or functional information about the target protein. Soluble protein can be detected in vivo and in vitro by fusion reporter tags. Protein misfolding can be measured in vivo using the bacterial response to protein misfolding. Finally, soluble protein can be monitored by immunological detection. Efficient, well-established strategies for generating and recombining genetic diversity, driven by new screening and selection methods, can furnish correctly folded, soluble protein.

The TB structural genomics consortium: a resource for Mycobacterium tuberculosis biology

The TB Structural Genomics Consortium is an organization devoted to encouraging, coordinating, and facilitating the determination and analysis of structures of proteins from Mycobacterium tuberculosis. The Consortium members hope to work together with other M. tuberculosis researchers to identify M. tuberculosis proteins for which structural information could provide important biological information, to analyze and interpret structures of M. tuberculosis proteins, and to work collaboratively to test ideas about M. tuberculosis protein function that are suggested by structure or related to structural information. This review describes the TB Structural Genomics Consortium and some of the proteins for which the Consortium is in the progress of determining three-dimensional structures.

A New Protein-Protein Interaction Sensor Based on Tripartite Split-GFP Association

Monitoring protein-protein interactions in living cells is key to unraveling their roles in numerous cellular processes and various diseases. Previously described split-GFP based sensors suffer from poor folding and/or self-assembly background fluorescence. Here, we have engineered a micro-tagging system to monitor protein-protein interactions in vivo and in vitro. The assay is based on tripartite association between two twenty amino-acids long GFP tags, GFP10 and GFP11, fused to interacting protein partners, and the complementary GFP1-9 detector. When proteins interact, GFP10 and GFP11 self-associate with GFP1-9 to reconstitute a functional GFP. Using coiled-coils and FRB/FKBP12 model systems we characterize the sensor in vitro and in Escherichia coli. We extend the studies to mammalian cells and examine the FK-506 inhibition of the rapamycin-induced association of FRB/FKBP12. The small size of these tags and their minimal effect on fusion protein behavior and solubility should enable new experiments for monitoring protein-protein association by fluorescence.

Recent advances in GFP folding reporter and split-GFP solubility reporter technologies. Application to improving the folding and solubility of recalcitrant proteins from Mycobacterium tuberculosis.

We have improved our green fluorescent protein (GFP) folding reporter technology [Waldo et al., (1999) Nat. Biotechnol. 17, 691–695] to evolve recalcitrant proteins from Mycobacterium tuberculosis. The target protein is inserted into the scaffolding of the GFP, eliminating false-positive artifacts caused by expression of truncated protein variants from internal cryptic ribosome binding sites in the target RNA. In parallel, we have developed a new quantitative fluorescent protein tagging and detection system based on micro-domains of GFP. This split-GFP system, which works both in vivo and in vitro, is amenable to high-throughput assays of protein expression and solubility [Cabantous et al., (2005) Nat. Biotechnol. 23, 102–107]. Together, the GFP folding reporter and split-GFP technologies offer a comprehensive system for manipulating and improving protein folding and solubility.

The TB structural genomics consortium: Providing a structural foundation for drug discovery

Structural genomics, the large-scale determination of protein structures, promises to provide a broad structural foundation for drug discovery. The tuberculosis (TB) Structural Genomics Consortium is devoted to encouraging, coordinating, and facilitating the determination of structures of proteins from Mycobacterium tuberculosis and hopes to determine 400 TB protein structures over 5 years. The Consortium has determined structures of 28 proteins from TB to date. These protein structures are already providing a basis for drug discovery efforts.

A method for normalization of X-ray absorption spectra

Accurate normalization of X-ray absorption data is essential for quantitative analysis of near-edge features. A method, implemented as the program MBACK, to normalize X-ray absorption data to tabulated mass absorption coefficients is described. Comparison of conventional normalization methods with MBACK demonstrates that the new normalization method is not sensitive to the shape of the background function, thus allowing accurate comparison of data collected in transmission mode with data collected using fluorescence ion chambers or solid-state fluorescence detectors. The new method is shown to have better reliability and consistency and smaller errors than conventional normalization methods. The sensitivity of the new normalization method is illustrated by analysis of data collected during an equilibrium titration.

Directed evolution approach to a structural genomics project: Rv2002 from Mycobacterium tuberculosis

One of the serious bottlenecks in structural genomics projects is overexpression of the target proteins in soluble form. We have applied the directed evolution technique and prepared soluble mutants of the Mycobacterium tuberculosis Rv2002 gene product, the wild type of which had been expressed as inclusion bodies in Escherichia coli. A triple mutant I6T/V47M/T69K (Rv2002-M3) was chosen for structural and functional characterizations. Enzymatic assays indicate that the Rv2002-M3 protein has a high catalytic activity as a NADH-dependent 3α, 20β-hydroxysteroid dehydrogenase. We have determined the crystal structures of a binary complex with NAD+ and a ternary complex with androsterone and NADH. The structure reveals that Asp-38 determines the cofactor specificity. The catalytic site includes the triad Ser-140/Tyr-153/Lys-157. Additionally, it has an unusual feature, Glu-142. Enzymatic assays of the E142A mutant of Rv2002-M3 indicate that Glu-142 reverses the effect of Lys-157 in influencing the pKa of Tyr-153. This study suggests that the Rv2002 gene product is a unique member of the SDR family and is likely to be involved in steroid metabolism in M. tuberculosis. Our work demonstrates the power of the directed evolution technique as a general way of overcoming the difficulties in overexpressing the target proteins in soluble form.