A. Negro et al., THE COMPLETE MATURE BOVINE PRION PROTEIN HIGHLY EXPRESSED IN ESCHERICHIA-COLI - BIOCHEMICAL AND STRUCTURAL STUDIES, FEBS letters, 412(2), 1997, pp. 359-364
According to the 'protein only' hypothesis, modification of the 3-dime
nsional fold of the constituent cellular protein, PrPC, into the disea
se-associated isoform, PrPSc, is the cause of neurodegenerative diseas
es in animals and humans, Here we describe the high-level synthesis in
Escherichia coli, and purification in the monomeric form, of a histid
ine-tagged full-length mature PrP (25-249) of bovine brain, termed His
-PrP, Based on biochemical and spectroscopic data, His-PrP displays ch
aracteristics expected for the PrPC isoform, The reported expression s
ystem should allow the production of quantities of bovine PrPC suffici
ent to permit 3-dimensional structure determinations. (C) 1997 Federat
ion of European Biochemical Societies.