High-Level Production of MMLV Reverse Transcriptase Enzyme in Escherichia Coli

Abstract

Reverse transcriptase (RT) of Moloney murine leukemia virus (MMLV) is the most widely used enzyme for cDNA synthesis and RNA amplification. In this study, we aimed to produce MMLV RT enzyme recombinantly due to its importance in molecular studies. In this context, the DNA fragment encoding the MMLV RT enzyme was cloned into pTOLT plasmid and expressed in E. coli BL21 (DE3) pLysE cells. Since the high-level expression of the protein caused the protein molecules to aggregate in the inclusion bodies, co-expression of MMLV RT and chaperone plasmids (pG-KJE8, pGro7, pKJE7, pGTf2, pTf16) was performed to obtain the MMLV RT protein in soluble form. Contrary to our expectations, because it could not be obtained in soluble form, the protein was recovered from the inclusion bodies using refolding process. Finally, the protein was purified by affinity chromatography and the activity of the protein was checked using RT-PCR technique.