Effect of translation enhancing nascent SKIK peptide on the arrest peptides containing consecutive Proline

Abstract

AbstractRibosome arrest peptides (RAPs) such as SecM arrest peptide (SecM AP) and WPPP with consecutive Pro residues, are known to induce translational stalling inEscherichia coli. We demonstrate that the translation enhancing SKIK peptide tag, which consisted of four amino acid residues Ser-Lys-Ile-Lys, effectively alleviate translational arrest caused by WPPP. Moreover, the proximity between SKIK and WPPP significantly influences the extent of this alleviation, observed in both PURE cell-free protein synthesis and in vivo protein production systems, resulting in a substantial increase in the yield of proteins containing such RAPs. Furthermore, we unveil that nascent SKIK peptide tag and translation elongation factor P (EF-P) which alleviate ribosome stalling in consecutive-Pro rich protein, synergistically promote translation. A kinetic analysis based on the generation of super folder green fluorescent protein under in vitro translation reaction reveals that the ribosome turnover is enhanced by more than 10-fold when the SKIK peptide tag is positioned immediately upstream of the SecM AP sequence. Our findings provide valuable insights into optimizing protein production processes, which are essential for advancing synthetic biology applications.Abstract Figure