A general method is described for the rapid assembly of synthetic genes enc
oding protein polymers based on the Seamless cloning technique. Genes encod
ing repeats of the elastin-mimetic polypeptides [(Val-Pro-Gly-Val-Gly)(4)(V
al-Pro-Gly-Xaa-Gly)] (Xaa = Lys 1; Ile, 2) were constructed using this tech
nique. The use of this method eliminates the dependence of the concatameriz
ation on a limited pool of nonpalindromic restriction endonucleases and red
uces the number of subcloning steps. A synthetic gene of approximately 3000
base pairs in length was isolated that encoded a protein polymer based on
repeat sequence 1. An inducible expression of this gene in bacterial cultur
es of recombinant E. coli afforded a 90 kDa protein polymer of 1 in high yi
eld (64 mg/L of bacterial culture). The protein was purified to homogeneity
using immobilized metal affinity chromatography. The sequence of the prote
in polymer was confirmed by N-terminal amino acid sequence analysis and MAL
DI-TOF mass spectrometry of site-specific proteolytic cleavage fragments.