Expression, purification, and crystallization of recombinant human ABL-1 kinase for X-ray crystallography

TL;DR

This paper describes the successful expression, purification, and crystallization of the ABL-1 kinase domain for structural studies to aid in drug development for CML.

Contribution

A novel method for solubilizing and purifying recombinant human ABL-1 kinase for X-ray crystallography is presented.

Findings

The ABL-1 kinase domain was successfully expressed and purified in E. coli using a SUMO-tag and sarkosyl detergent.

Crystallization trials were initiated to determine the structure of ABL-1 for drug development in CML.

High yield of purified ABL-1 was achieved using Ni-NTA affinity chromatography and ULP1 protease.

Abstract

Abelson-1 (ABL-1) is a nonreceptor tyrosine kinase that plays essential roles in various cellular processes, including proliferation, survival, differentiation and its kinase activity is tightly regulated. The dysregulated ABL-1 kinase activity is linked to disease pathogenesis like Chronic Myeloid Leukemia (CML), where the BCR::ABL-1 fusion oncoprotein drives oncogenic signaling. Due to its central role in CML pathogenesis, understanding the structure of ABL-1 is crucial for the effective management of the disease and drug development studies. This study focuses on optimizing the expression, purification and crystallization of the recombinant human ABL-1 kinase domain for its structural analysis via X-ray crystallography and structure-based drug screening applications. The human ABL-1 kinase domain, fused with a SUMO-tag, was expressed in Escherichia coli Rosetta2 BL21 using the pET28(a)+ expression vector. The ABL-1 aggregates seen under native culture conditions were successfully solubilized by the mild ionic detergent sarkosyl. After obtaining soluble expression of the protein, Ni-NTA affinity chromatography was performed and high yield of purified ABL-1 was obtained. The 6X-His-SUMO-tag of purified ABL1 was cleaved by ULP1 protease. The recombinant ABL-1 was subsequently used in crystallization trials to enlighten structural features of ABL-1 that could guide the development of novel therapeutics and drug screening platforms targeting ABL-1 in CML.

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