Escherichia coli (E. coli) is a bacterium widely used to produce recombinant proteins. Numerous mutant strains, including BL21(DE3) and its derivatives, have been developed to express target proteins1. The process is typically driven by an encoded bacteriophage T7 RNA polymerase and induced with isopropyl ß-D1-thiopalactopyranoside (IPTG), an analogue of lactose that will activate the lac operon by releasing the lac repressor1,2,3. Because it is non-hydrolyzable, there is continuous mRNA expression and higher protein production3.
While this type of system is convenient and consistent for many proteins, some types of recombinant proteins induce toxicity in E. coli, leading to poor protein yields. Toxicity from the presence of recombinant protein negatively affecting the bacteria may be due to leaky expression before induction or stress to the bacteria upon induction3,4. The result is a decrease in the growth rate and viability of bacteria5. Suppression of leaky expression can play an important role in successfully expressing toxic proteins. Expression strains of E. coli with pLysS plasmids (i.e., BL21(DE3)pLysS, C41(DE3)pLysS, etc.) suppress leaky expression by expressing a T7 lysozyme that inhibits T7 polymerase prior to induction6,7. Other strains, such as C41(DE3) and C43(DE3) strains, contain mutations that reduce the activity of the T7 polymerase by reducing its mRNA levels, and remove the lon and ompT proteases1,4,8,9,10. Suppressing leaky expression or reducing the rate of recombinant protein production (via T7 polymerase regulation or decreased temperatures) helps increase the yield of toxic proteins1,9.
Nucleases are often toxic and hard-to-express proteins when using an E. coli expression system due to their enzymatic activity towards cellular DNA or RNA1. For example, the endoribonuclease Nsp15 found in coronaviruses and other nidoviruses is toxic to the bacteria, resulting in a slower growth rate and low yields11,12,13,14,15,16,17. Because of its catalytic role, cleaving 3' of uridines in viral RNA, Nsp15 is thought to act on both its own and cellular mRNA when expressed recombinantly, which results in dysregulation of metabolism and recombinant protein expression11,14. For Nsp15, oligomerization is necessary for enzymatic activity. Previous studies of beta-coronavirus (such as SARS and SARS-CoV-2) Nsp15 demonstrated that the enzyme primarily oligomerizes into a homohexamer in solution, with the monomeric form being inactive16,18,19,20. When mutated to only form monomers, significant increases in yield were seen14. Additionally, when mutating one of the catalytic residues within the catalytic triad to an alanine, improved expression under the same conditions as the WT was observed, further supporting that Nsp15's toxicity to E. coli is driven by its nuclease activity13,16,17. In this protocol, we show the difference in yield between WT gamma-coronavirus (Infectious Bronchitis Virus) Nsp15 and a catalytic-dead version achieved by mutating one of the catalytic histidine residues (H223A).
Here we describe a step-by-step methodology for overexpressing recombinant Nsp15 in a C41(DE3) expression system, followed by protein purification through affinity and size exclusion chromatography. An N-terminal 6x His-tag with cobalt-based immobilized metal affinity chromatography (IMAC) is employed to isolate the protein. Further purification is performed via SEC to separate Nsp15 by oligomeric state and isolate the active hexameric species. This approach offers a method to overexpress and purify toxic nucleases for biochemical and structural studies.