Engineering Xaa-Pro dipeptidyl aminopeptidase for specific cleavage of glucagon and glucagon-like peptide 1 from fusion proteins.

N-terminal extensions ("tags") have proven valuable for producing peptides using high throughput recombinant expression technologies. However, the applicability is hampered by the limited options for specific and efficient proteases to release the fully native sequence without additional amino acids in the N-terminal. Here we describe the Escherichia coli (E. coli) expression, purification and characterization of engineered variants of Xaa-Pro dipeptidyl aminopeptidase (Xaa-Pro-DAP) derived from Lactococcus lactis for cleavage of Gly-Pro dipeptide extension in the N-terminal of glucagon and glucagon-like peptide 1 (GLP-1(7-37)). By single amino acid substitution in the Xaa-Pro-DAP protease, significantly higher product yields were achieved. The combination of HRV14 3C protease and engineered Xaa-Pro-DAP is suggested for obtaining native N-terminal of peptides.
Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest M.Ø.P and A.C.S. are employees of Novo Nordisk A/S. E.V. and H.T were employees of Novo Nordisk A/S at the time of this study. E.V. is an employee of Novo Nordisk Research Center Seattle Inc.
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