• Journal of Microbiology and Biotechnology
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• v.33 no.11
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• pp.1513-1520
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• 2023

Kex2 protease (Kex2p) is a membrane-bound serine protease responsible for the proteolytic maturation of various secretory proteins by cleaving after dibasic residues in the late Golgi network. In this study, we present an application of Kex2p as an alternative endoprotease for the in vitro processing of recombinant fusion proteins produced by the yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae. The proteins were expressed with a fusion partner connected by a Kex2p cleavage sequence for enhanced expression and easy purification. To avoid in vivo processing of fusion proteins by Kex2p during secretion and to guarantee efficient removal of the fusion partners by in vitro Kex2p processing, P₁', P₂', P₄, and P₃ sites of Kex2p cleavage sites were elaborately manipulated. The general use of Kex2p in recombinant protein production was confirmed using several recombinant proteins.

• Journal of Microbiology and Biotechnology
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• v.9 no.5
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• pp.679-682
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• 1999

When the human parathyroid hormone (hPTH) is expressed as a secretory product in S. cerevisiae, most of the secreted hPTH is internally cleaved by endoproteolytic processing. To investigate whether the yeast endoproteases such as Kex2p, Yap3p, and Mkc7p are involved in the endoproteolytic processing of hPTH in S. cerevisiae, hPTH was expressed in S. cerevisiae mutants deficient in one or two of the following well-known endoproteases such as Kex2p, Mkc7p, and Yap3p. Among these mutants, the yap3-disrupted(yap3$\Delta$) and yap3/mkc7-disrupted (yap3Δmkc7$\Delta$) yeasts showed a significant reduction in the extent of hPTH proteolysis. In contrast, the mkc7-disrupted (mkc7$\Delta$) yeast did not reduce the proteolysis of hPTH as compared to the wild type. This suggests that Mkc7p is not involved in the endoproteolytic processing of hPTH. It was also found that the kex2-disrupted (kex2$\Delta$) mutant was not able to secrete a detectable amount of hPTH.

• Journal of Microbiology and Biotechnology
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• v.24 no.3
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• pp.337-345
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• 2014

Pichia pastoris is one of the most widely used expression systems for the secretory expression of recombinant proteins. The secretory expression in P. pastoris usually makes use of the prepro $MAT{\alpha}$ sequence from Saccharomyces cerevisiae, which has a dibasic amino acid cleavage site at the end of the signal sequence. This is efficiently processed by Kex2 protease, resulting in the secretion of high levels of proteins to the medium. However, the proteins that are having the internal accessible dibasic amino acids such as KR and RR in the coding region cannot be expressed using this signal sequence, as the protein will be fragmented. We have identified a new signal sequence of 18 amino acids from a P. pastoris protein that can secrete proteins to the medium efficiently. The PMT1-gene-inactivated P. pastoris strain secretes a ~30 kDa protein into the extracellular medium. We have identified this protein by determining its N-terminal amino acid sequence. The protein secreted has four DDDK concatameric internal repeats. This protein was not secreted in the wild-type P. pastoris under normal culture conditions. We show that the 18-amino-acid signal peptide at the N-terminal of this protein is useful for secretion of heterologous proteins in Pichia.