Size of proteins expressed on phage

[Andrew, Tel. +39-6-91093434]

Reposted from a message from Brian Kay. <KAY at UNCVX1.OIT.UNC.EDU>

>Hi Andrew,
>
>We have cloned 38 and ~100 amino acid coding regions in gene III
>of phage. The record goes to John McCafferty who cloned bacterial
>alkaline phosphatase (56 kDa ?) on M13 in gene III. The reference
>is
>	McCafferty, J., Jackson, R.H., and Chiswell, D.J. 1991. Phage-enzymes:
>expression and affinity chromatography of functional alkaline phosphatase on 
>the surface of bacteriophage. Protein-Eng 4: 955-961.
>
>
>Clonablitity is more than just length of the additional protein.
>We have found certain 20 amino acid peptides to be deleterious
>to phage growth. One particular insert was only detected as
>being cloned when we used a lacz+ vector and saw tiny, tiny
>blue plaques. When we grew up sample plaques, the culture
>would yield small and large plaques. All the large plaques
>bred true (gave large plaques), but had deletions of our
>insert. All the small plaques, when grown, gave small and
>large plaques off; with time the small plaque phage 
>vanished from the population.

>Brian


Hope this answers your question

	Andrew <wallace at irbm.it>