Synthesis of a metal binding protein designed on the alpha/beta scaffold of charybdotoxin

The alpha/beta scaffold of the scorpion toxin charybdotoxin has been used for the engineering of a metal binding site. Nine substitutions, including three histidines as metal ligands, have been introduced into the original toxin sequence. The newly designed sequence, 37 amino acids long, has been assembled by solid-phase synthesis and HBTU (2-(1H-benzotriazol-1-yl)-1,1,3,3-tetramethyluronium hexafluorophosphate) coupling of Fmoc-protected amino acids. Formation of the three disulfide bonds occurred efficiently and rapidly in the presence of glutathione, and this post-synthesis modification has facilitated the purification task enormously. The process of synthesis and purification was performed in less than a week with an overall 10.2% yield. Circular dichroism analysis showed that the newly designed protein is folded in a alpha/beta structure, similarly to the parent toxin. Electronic absorption spectroscopy, circular dichroism and gel filtration experiments have been used to show that Cu2+ and Zn2+ ions bind with high affinity to the newly engineered protein. These results demonstrate that the alpha/beta fold, common to all scorpion toxins, is a very versatile basic structure, tolerant for substitutions and able to present new sequences in a predetermined conformation. The chemical approach is shown to be effective, rapid and practical for the production of novel designed small proteins.