Expression of a proline-enriched protein in Escherichia coli

The feasibility of expressing repeated synthetic codons in bacterial cells was demonstrated by showing that repeated codons for proline were expressed in Escherichia coli. Recombinant DNA technology was used to clone synthetic polydeoxyguanylate:polydeoxycytidylate into the PstI site of plasmid pBR322. Recombinant plasmid pGC139 was shown by means of HaeIII restriction digestion to contain approximately 41 cloned base pairs; the cloned sequence was expressed as a fusion to an ampicillinase protein. The resulting protein, enriched in proline, was expressed from plasmid pGC139 in E. coli maxicells. Extension of this technology could lead to improvement in the production of amino acids and to nutritional enrichment of single-cell protein.