Further characterization and engineering of a 11-amino acid motif for enhancing recombinant protein expression

ABSTRACT

BackgroundRecombinant protein production inEscherichia coli(E. coli) is a widely used system in both academic and industrial research owing to its low cost and wide availability of genetic tools. Despite its advantages, this system still struggles with soluble expression of recombinant proteins. To address this, various solubility-enhancing and yield-improving methods such as the addition of fusion tags have been developed. However, traditional tags such as small ubiquitin-related modifier (SUMO) and Glutathione S-transferase (GST) can interfere with protein folding or require removal post-translation, which adds complexity and cost to production. To circumvent these issues, smaller solubility tags (