Expression, purification and characterization of a catalytic domain of human protein tyrosine phosphatase non-receptor 12 (PTPN12) in Escherichia coli with FKBP-type PPIase as a chaperon

Abstract Protein tyrosine phosphatase non-receptor type 12 (PTPN12), also known as PTP-PEST, was broadly expressed in hemopoietic cells. Recent research has shown that this enzyme is involved in tumorigenesis, as well as in tumor progression and transfer, as it can suppress multiple oncogenic tyrosine kinases. However, the difficulty of soluble expression of PTP-PEST in prokaryotic cells has resulted in great limitations in investigating its structure and functions. In this study, we successfully carried out soluble expression of the catalytic domain of PTP-PEST (ΔPTP-PEST) in Escherichia coli and performed an enzymatic characterization and kinetics. To confirm expression efficiency, we also induced the expression of the chaperon, FKBP_C. FKBP_C expression indicated efficacious prokaryotic expression of ΔPTP-PEST. In conclusion, our work yielded a practical expression system and two-step chromatography purification method that may serve as a valuable tool for the structural and functional analysis of proteins that are difficult to express in the soluble form in prokaryotic cells.