Tagged and untagged amyloid precursor protein E2 domain have comparable thermal stability and metal-ion binding...

The amyloid precursor protein, central to the pathology of several disease including Alzheimer's disease, cancer and obesity, represents a therapeutic target. Being able to screen amyloid precursor protein, and its domains, in rapid high-throughput assays could advance drug discovery efforts. The purpose of this study was to determine if removal of a C-terminal tag from the amyloid precursor protein E2 domain was necessary for ligand screening using differential scanning fluorometry. To this end, we assessed both the thermal stability and metal-ion binding propensity in both the tagged and untagged protein.

The C-terminal myc-6xHis-tag does not impact the amyloid precursor protein E2 domain thermal stability with comparable melting temperatures of 59.4 °C and 59.1 °C in sodium phosphate buffer, for tagged and untagged protein, respectively. Additionally, the tag had no influence on the ability of the metal-ions, Zn²⁺ and Cu²⁺, to shift the thermal stability of the E2 domain indicating that metal-ion binding is not influenced by the tag. We therefore suggest that it is not necessary to remove the C-terminal tag from the E2 domain for ligand screening using differential scanning fluorometry.