Chemoselective attachment of biologically active proteins to surfaces by expressed protein ligation and its application for "protein chip" fabrication

The present work describes a general method for the selective attachment of proteins to solid surfaces through their C-termini that can be used for the efficient creation of protein chips. Our method is based in the chemoselective reaction between a protein C-terminal α-thioester and a modified surface containing N-terminal Cys residues. α-Thioester proteins can be obtained using standard recombinant techniques by using expression vectors containing engineered inteins. This new method was used to immobilize two fluorescent proteins and a functional SH3 domain using a protein microarrayer.