Coexpression and Reconstitution of Enzymatic Cascades in Bacteria Using UbiGate

Abstract

Coexpression of multiple genes of interest (GOIs) is advantageous for many purposes including the elucidation of protein complexes, reconstitution of enzymatic cascades that mediate the biosynthesis of compounds, the study of signaling cascades, or the elucidation of posttranslational modification. Additional advantages of coexpressing proteins is increased solubility and stability of proteins. For this purpose we developed UbiGate, a modular system based on Golden Gate cloning that enables the generation of polycistronic expression cassettes. Their generation is achieved in four simple steps: (1) GOIs are amplified via PCR, (2) and restriction-ligated into level 0 cloning vectors. Next, (3) the GOIs in a level 0 vector are restriction-ligated into a dedicated set of level 1 vectors that define the position of the GOI within the operon. In the last step (4), level 1 vectors are cloned into a modified pET28-GG expression vector. The resulting modules at each step can be reused to generate fusions with different tags in any desired order and orientation, to include up to six different proteins representing a useful tool facilitating the study of plant metabolic and signaling pathways.