Protein Expression and Purification, Vol.49, No.1, 55-59, 2006
High-level expression, purification, and characterization of non-tagged Aspergillus flavus urate oxidase in Escherichia coli
The entire encoding region for Aspergillus flavus uricase was cloned into pET-32a and expressed in Escherichia coli BL21 (DE3). The uricase was expressed in the E. coli cytoplasm in a completely soluble, biologically active form. A scalable process aimed to produce and purify multi-gram quantities of highly pure, recombinant urate oxidase (rUox) from E. coli was developed. The rUox protein was produced in a 30L fermentor containing 25L of 2x YT medium and purified to > 99% purity using hydrophobic interaction, anion-exchange, and gel filtered chromatography. The final yield of purified rUox from fermentation resulted in approximately 27 g of highly pure, biologically active rUox per kg of cell paste (approximately 238 mg/8.8 g cell paste/L). The results presented here exhibit the ability to generate multi-gram quantities of rUox from E. coli that may be used for the development of pharmaceutics of reducing the hyperuricemia. (c) 2006 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.