High-throughput protein production--lessons from scaling up from 10 to 288 recombinant proteins per week.

The demand for high-throughput recombinant protein production has markedly increased with the increased activity in the field of proteomics. Within the Human Protein Atlas project recombinantly produced human protein fragments are used for antibody production. Here we describe how the protein expression and purification protocol has been optimized in the project to allow for handling of nearly 300 different proteins per week.

A general, robust method for the quality control of intact proteins using LC-ESI-MS.

A simple and robust method for the routine quality control of intact proteins based on liquid chromatography coupled to electrospray ionization mass spectrometry (LC-ESI-MS) is presented. A wide range of prokaryotic and eukaryotic proteins expressed recombinantly in Escherichia coli or Pichia pastoris has been analyzed with medium- to high-throughput with on-line desalting from multi-well sample plates. Particular advantages of the method include fast chromatography and short cycle times, the use of inexpensive trapping/desalting columns, low sample carryover, and the ability to analyze proteins with masses ranging from 5 to 100 kDa with greater than 50 ppm accuracy.

A human protein atlas for normal and cancer tissues based on antibody proteomics.

Antibody-based proteomics provides a powerful approach for the functional study of the human proteome involving the systematic generation of protein-specific affinity reagents. We used this strategy to construct a comprehensive, antibody-based protein atlas for expression and localization profiles in 48 normal human tissues and 20 different cancers. Here we report a new publicly available database containing, in the first version, approximately 400,000 high resolution images corresponding to more than 700 antibodies toward human proteins.

High-throughput solubility assay for purified recombinant protein immunogens.

A high-throughput assay is described for analysis of the solubility of purified recombinant proteins. The assay is based on affinity purification of proteins in the presence of chaotropic agents followed by a dilution and incubation step to investigate the solubility in the absence of high concentrations of such agents. The assay can be performed in a 96-well format, which makes it well suited for high-throughput applications.

A novel flow cytometry-based method for analysis of expression levels in Escherichia coli, giving information about precipitated and soluble protein.

A high throughput method for screening of protein expression is described. By using a flow cytometer, levels of both soluble and precipitated protein can simultaneously be assessed in vivo. Protein fragments were fused to the N-terminus of enhanced GFP and the cell samples were analysed using a flow cytometer.