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I'm looking for some pointers to proteins that produce at really gigantic levels in E. coli and yeast (S. cerevisiae). Can anyone point to some champion proteins?

Even in inclusion bodies and non functional, just cases where the yield is very high - how much of a given protein can a liter of E. coli or S. cerevisiae make?

I've seen bands on gels like this, but I've probably not seen the champions:

random image from the web of an inclusion body

It would be great if you could cite and discuss the plasmid/promoter used and whether codon optimization or other such tricks made a difference.

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I think this comment (with respect to E. coli) was addressed here (biology.stackexchange.com/questions/5197/…). If you're looking to maximize plasmid protein expression, then you'll want a highly active constitutive promoter (eg, CMV), and then depending on codon optimization and many other factors, you might get ~20% by weight of your protein. –  leonardo Dec 15 '12 at 2:20
thanks for the pointer - I was hoping to get some pointers to specific genes nearer the maximal limit though. OSCP is promising though - if nobody has anything better than that maybe i'll go there. –  shigeta Dec 15 '12 at 4:12
@Leonardo, CMV in ecoli probably would be a bad idea ;). I've heard that typically 1/6 of the cell weight would be protein so 20% doesn't sound too crazy. –  bobthejoe Dec 16 '12 at 12:04
hehe, just listed a promoter since it's what was on my mind at the time. ;) –  leonardo Dec 17 '12 at 5:14
The promoter is good information - I have only worked with T7 promotor for protein production I think. –  shigeta Dec 17 '12 at 18:00

1 Answer 1

up vote 2 down vote accepted

Heat shock proteins - HSP70 and HSP30.

You may also have ribosomal subunits as well.

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interesting! a reference would be appreciated? –  shigeta Feb 11 '13 at 18:11
Definitely agree. HSP70 is produced in gigantic quantities especially during recombinant protein expression in E. coli. You can get rid of HSP70 by doing a pulldown with denatured protein and ATP. –  jp89 Feb 11 '13 at 19:15
Here you go:wikigenes.org/e/gene/e/398343.html –  Srikant Krishna Feb 11 '13 at 19:32

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