A vector design that allows fast and convenient production of differently tagged proteins

Mammalian expression vectors for metabolic biotinylation tandem affinity tagging by co-expression in cis of a mammalian codon-optimized BirA biotin ligase

Οbjective

To construct mammalian expression vectors for the N- or C-terminal tagging of proteins with a tandem affinity tag comprised of the biotinylatable Avi tag and of a triple FLAG tag.

Results

We constructed and tested by transient transfections mammalian expression vectors for the co-expression from a single plasmid of N- or C-terminally tagged proteins bearing a tandem affinity tag comprised of the biotinylatable Avi tag and of a triple FLAG tag separated by a tobacco etch virus (TEV) protease cleavage site, together with a mammalian codon-optimized BirA biotin ligase fused to green fluorescent protein. We also describe platform vectors for the N- or C-terminal AVI-TEV-FLAG tagging of any complementary DNA of choice. These vectors offer versatility and efficiency in the application of metabolic biotinylation tandem affinity tagging of nuclear proteins in mammalian cells.

Electronic supplementary material

The online version of this article (10.1186/s13104-018-3500-9) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.