One-Tube-Only Standardized Site-Directed Mutagenesis: An Alternative Approach to Generate Amino Acid Substitution Collections

PLoS One. 2016 Aug 22;11(8):e0160972. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0160972. eCollection 2016.

Abstract

Site-directed mutagenesis (SDM) is a powerful tool to create defined collections of protein variants for experimental and clinical purposes, but effectiveness is compromised when a large number of mutations is required. We present here a one-tube-only standardized SDM approach that generates comprehensive collections of amino acid substitution variants, including scanning- and single site-multiple mutations. The approach combines unified mutagenic primer design with the mixing of multiple distinct primer pairs and/or plasmid templates to increase the yield of a single inverse-PCR mutagenesis reaction. Also, a user-friendly program for automatic design of standardized primers for Ala-scanning mutagenesis is made available. Experimental results were compared with a modeling approach together with stochastic simulation data. For single site-multiple mutagenesis purposes and for simultaneous mutagenesis in different plasmid backgrounds, combination of primer sets and/or plasmid templates in a single reaction tube yielded the distinct mutations in a stochastic fashion. For scanning mutagenesis, we found that a combination of overlapping primer sets in a single PCR reaction allowed the yield of different individual mutations, although this yield did not necessarily follow a stochastic trend. Double mutants were generated when the overlap of primer pairs was below 60%. Our results illustrate that one-tube-only SDM effectively reduces the number of reactions required in large-scale mutagenesis strategies, facilitating the generation of comprehensive collections of protein variants suitable for functional analysis.

MeSH terms

  • Amino Acid Substitution*
  • DNA Primers / genetics*
  • DNA Primers / metabolism
  • Escherichia coli / genetics
  • Escherichia coli / metabolism
  • Gene Expression
  • Humans
  • Mutagenesis, Site-Directed / methods*
  • Mutation*
  • PTEN Phosphohydrolase / genetics
  • PTEN Phosphohydrolase / metabolism
  • Plasmids / chemistry
  • Plasmids / metabolism
  • Polymerase Chain Reaction / methods*
  • Receptor-Like Protein Tyrosine Phosphatases, Class 5 / genetics
  • Receptor-Like Protein Tyrosine Phosphatases, Class 5 / metabolism
  • Software

Substances

  • DNA Primers
  • PTPRZ1 protein, human
  • Receptor-Like Protein Tyrosine Phosphatases, Class 5
  • PTEN Phosphohydrolase
  • PTEN protein, human

Grants and funding

This work was supported in part by grant SAF2013-48812-R from Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad (Spain), 2013111011 from Gobierno Vasco, Departamento de Salud (Basque Country, Spain), and BIO13/CI/001/BC from BIOEF/EITB maratoia (Basque Country, Spain). JMC and RP are funded by Ikerbasque: Basque Foundation for Science (Basque Country, Spain). AE and JM are the recipients of two pre-doctoral fellowships from Gobierno Vasco, Departamento de Educación (Basque Country, Spain) (PRE_2014_1_252 to AE and PRE_2014_1_285 to JM). SL has been the recipient of a fellowship from Bilbao Bizkaia Kutxa (BBK) (Spain).