A New Small and Resilient Nucleic Acid-Binding Protein from Nanoarchaeum equitans

Nucleic acid-binding proteins (NBPs) are essential biomolecules in all organisms. They play an important role in gene regulation and expression in cells. One type of these proteins is DNA- and RNA-binding proteins, known as DRBPs. In recent years, research has started to focus more on this particular group and new DRBPs have been identified successively. Their special dual-binding abilities are used in biotechnology and medicine. They can be applied for gene editing and drug development in treating such diseases as cancer. One of the NBP is Neq150, which comes from the Archaea strain Nanoarchaeum equitans. In our study, we purified the recombinant Neq150 with IMAC chromatography and assessed its binding ability to various forms of nucleic acids with EMSA. Thus, we concluded that Neq150 can be classified as a DRBP. Moreover, it exhibits thermostability at high temperatures (3 h at 99 °C) and significant long-term stability under various conditions. These results indicate that the Neq150 protein is a promising candidate for many applications in biotechnology and molecular biology, for example, as an auxiliary protein. The fusion of the DNA polymerase with another NBP protein from N. equitans (NeqSSB) has been previously well characterized, showing potential for similar possible applications for the Neq150.