Hi Lisa,
Have you compared your yield of purified protein of soluble protein per gram of 
pellet,  4M Guanidine solubilized pellet (wash and elute from Ni column with 8M 
urea .5M imidazole..otherwise the gel with run crappy), and and total protein 
in the pellet on a page gel?   The main reason I would think you get high 
background of cellular proteins on you Ni purification is because your yield is 
too low (I know obvious..). There are a variety of methods to increase yield 
like expressing at RT (assuming your expressing in E.coli), or switching to 
yeast, insect, or mamallian cells if your protein is of human origin. The most 
helpful and easiest  method to try first (after trying low temp), would be 
switching the tag from N to C terminus or vice versa. Otherwise switch to a 
thermophile version of your protein if possible (and try cysteine mutants or 
other bacterial organisms for source the source gene).
Paul
ps one thing I forgot, you mention it is a DNA binding protein, solublizing in 
2M NaCl is much better than 1M NaCl, you could just be losing it...the protein 
that is :-)
 
Dr. Paul Kraft
Structural Biologist
cell 586-596-2770
email: [email protected]
email: [email protected]




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From: LISA <[email protected]>
To: [email protected]
Sent: Thursday, August 4, 2011 11:51 AM
Subject: [ccp4bb] gst-tag protein purify problem


hi guys,
I have a DNA binding protein and expressed the DNA binding domain (150 aa) with 
his-sumo tag or gst tag at the n-terminal. I tried to purified it with Ni 
column or Gst column separately. But purity is lower than 50% after Ni or GST 
column. This protein only stable with 1M Nacl or higher. I worked on it almost 
half year. But I still can not get the pure protein. 
please give me some suggestions. Thank you.

Lisa

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