Purification of prenylated proteins by affinity chromatography on cyclodextrin-modified agarose

Although protein prenylation is widely studied, there are few good methods for isolating prenylated proteins from their non-prenylated relatives. We report that crosslinked agarose (e.g., Sepharose) chromatography media that has been chemically functionalized with β-cyclodextrin (β-CD) is extremely effective in affinity chromatography of prenylated proteins. In this study, a variety of proteins with C-terminal prenylation target (“CAAX box”) sequences were enzymatically prenylated in vitro with natural and non-natural prenyl diphosphate substrates. The prenylated protein products could then be isolated from starting materials by gravity chromatography or fast protein liquid chromatography (FPLC) on a β-CD-Sepharose column. One particular prenylation reaction—farnesylation of a mCherry-CAAX fusion construct—was studied in detail. In this case, purified farnesylated product was unambiguously identified by electrospray mass spectrometry. In addition, when mCherry-CAAX was prenylated with a non-natural, functional isoprenoid substrate, the functional group was maintained by chromatography on β-CD-Sepharose, such that the resulting protein could be selectively bound at its C terminus to complementary functionality on a solid substrate. Finally, β-CD-Sepharose FPLC was used to isolate prenylated mCherry-CAAX from crude HeLa cell lysate, as a model for purifying prenylated proteins from cell extracts. We propose that this method could be generally useful to the community of researchers studying protein prenylation.