Universidad Andres Bello 1 article published in JoVE Neuroscience An Improved Protocol to Purify and Directly Mono-Biotinylate Recombinant BDNF in a Tube for Cellular Trafficking Studies in Neurons Nicolás Stuardo1,2, Guillermo Moya-Alvarado1,3, Carolina Ramírez1,3, Giampietro Schiavo4, Francisca C. Bronfman1,3 1Department of Physiology, Faculty of Biological Sciences, Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile, 2Department of Molecular and Cellular Biology, Faculty of Biological Sciences, Center for Aging and Regeneration (CARE UC), Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile, 3Institute of Biomedical Sciences. Faculty of Medicine and Faculty of Life Sciences, Universidad Andrés Bello, 4Department of Neuromuscular Diseases, UCL Queen Square Institute of Neurology and UK Dementia Research Institute at UCL, University College London Campus Recombinant BDNF containing an Avi sequence (BDNFAvi) is produced in HEK293 cells in a cost-effective manner and is purified by affinity chromatography. BDNFavi is then directly mono-biotinylated with the enzyme BirA in a tube. BDNFavi and mono-biotinylated BDNFavi retain their biological activity when compared to commercially available BDNF.
