High-Throughput Isolation of Soluble Protein Domains Using a Bipartite Split-GFP Complementation System.

The identification of soluble, folded domains of proteins is a recurring task in modern molecular biology. We detail a protocol for identifying compact soluble protein domains using a self-assembling two-part split-GFP comprised of a detector fragment (GFP β-strands 1 through 10, or GFP1-10) and a tagging fragment (GFP β-strand 11, or GFP11). The assay is performed in E. coli cells and in cell extracts. A selection step insures the protein fragments are in frame and contain no stop codons, while an inverse PCR is used to enrich protein fragment libraries containing a specific target sequence.