Designing an intein as a Self-cleaving fusion tag

Inteins are internal protein elements that selfexcise from their host protein and catalyze ligation of the flanking sequences (exteins) with a peptide bond. Inteins are classified into three groups, large, mini and split inteins. Large inteins contain a homing endonuclease domain that is absent in mini and split inteins. Split inteins are two fragmented inteins encoded by two separately transcribed and translated genes. These inteins self-associate and catalyze protein-splicing activity in trans. split inteins could be engineered in a way that their cleavage be inducible by temperature and pH or by thiol reagents so we can generate inducible Self-cleaving fusion tags.

Keywords:

split inteins , recA , protein splicing , self-cleaving