Recent evidence suggests that aberrant transglutaminase activity is associated with a wide variety of diseases. Tissue transglutaminase is the most widely distributed of the six well-characterized transglutaminases in humans. We describe a method for expressing hexahistidine-tagged human tissue transglutaminase in Escherichia coli BL21(DE3) using the pET-30 Ek/LIC expression vector. Purification of the expressed enzyme from suspensions of E. coli cells treated with CelLytic B Bacterial Cell Lysis/Extraction Reagent was accomplished by immobilized metal (Ni2+) affinity column chromatography. The procedure typically yields highly purified and highly active recombinant human tissue transglutaminase in about 1 day (about 0.6 mg/from a 1-liter culture).
Copyright 2002 Elsevier Science (USA).