Part:BBa_K1189018:Experience
A fusion of two ferrtin subunits
Ferritin is a protein shelled nanoparticle and is composed of a mixture of 24 light (BBa_K1189024) and heavy (BBa_K1189025) subunits. It is ubiquitous across eukaryotic and prokaryotic systems and is used to sequester intracellular iron (Chasteen et al., 1991). The 2013 iGEM Calgary used ferritin’s iron core as a reporter and its protein shell to scaffold DNA sensing TALEs as part of their project, the FerriTALE (see Figure 1).
Figure 1. 3D in silico rendering of BBa_K1189037 formed into functional nanoparticles bound to DNA sensing TALEs. The iron core is chemically modified and use to show when TALEs are bound to DNA. The TALEs are one specific, particular application of the ferritin E coil di-subunit fusion. This nanoparticle is the molecular basis of a DNA lateral flow strip biosensor pursued by the 2013 iGEM Calgary team.
BBa_K1189037 is a fusion of heavy and light ferritin subunits, such that ferritin nanoparticles are formed from 12 di-subunits. The rationale for this design is that it reduces the number of N-termini on ferritin to which proteins can be fused by half, which is important for lessening potential steric hindrances among fused proteins in the 3D sphere surrounding ferritin. Additionally, di-subunits mandate a 1:1 ratio of heavy and light subunits which ensures consistency in ferritin’s ability to uptake iron. Moreover, these fusions have been shown stable in engineered applications with other proteins scaffolded to ferritin (Dehal et al., 2010).
Design features
This part has an N-terminal fusion to an E coil connected to ferritin by a GS linker (Figure 2). The coil system is of utility to other iGEM teams because they can express K coils on their own proteins of interest, and bind them to the complementary E coil on ferritin. Such a coiled-coil linker system reduces potential for large protein fusions to harm ferritin formation, allowing user to build intricate nanoparticle devices with myriad proteins. See Figures 3 application examples.
Figure 2. Ferritin di-subunit fused to an E coil. The E coil allows binding to other proteins expressing a complementary K coil.
Figure 3. Using the E and K coils in combination with ferritin as a scaffold system allows the creation of brand new FerriTALEs or protein scaffolds.
This part is identical to BBa_1189037, except this part has no his purification tag.
Results
Please see the results from BBa_K1189037. The coding sequence is identical to BBa_K1189018, except for the his tag that we required to purify and characterize this part. Additionally, this page discusses how we converted this part into a reporter, Prussian blue ferritin.
References
User Reviews
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