Growth conditions: overnight TY culture, diluted 100x in fresh TY grown to exponential phase in 37°C. Plasmolysis is at RT. The phase-contrast image (left) is also depicted inverted-negative (middle) to more clearly visualize the plasmolysis bays. The cells are grown in the presence of IPTG to induce expression of the construct. After staining with fluorescent Streptavidin, we find that the SA-1

peptide is properly exposed Anlotinib datasheet on the cell surface (Figure 1A), suggesting that the OmpA TM domain is properly inserted in the OM, with the mCherry domain present in the periplasm. We used SDS-PAGE gel-shift experiments to check if the constructs are intact or suffer from degradation, and if so to what extent. These experiments make MLN2238 purchase use of OmpA’s so-called heat modifiability [29]: In its folded form, OmpA migrates to a different position in SDS-PAGE compared to its (heat denatured) unfolded form [9, 10]. First, we checked for a possible heat-modifiability of mCherry, as it also has a β-barrel fold. To this end, we grew cells expressing cytoplasmic mCherry, lysed them by sonication, and after varying heat treatment, subjected the samples to SDS-PAGE followed by immunoblotting with a monoclonal antibody (anti-DsRed, Clontech) that recognizes only denatured

DsRed variants, including mCherry (Figure 1B). Thus, we make use of the antibody’s specificity for the unfolded state of mCherry to obtain information on its folding state after varying heat treatment conditions. A band of the expected height (27 kDa) was present that increased in intensity upon heating (the faint band above it was also present in lysate without mCherry), and did not exhibit heat-modifiability. The increase in intensity is explained by a gradual unfolding of mCherry due to increasing exposure to heat. If we assume that after boiling, all mCherry is unfolded, we then conclude based on band intensities that at RT i.e. without any heat treatment, ~80% of mCherry is folded and 20% is not. Since mCherry

unfolds partially under conditions where OmpA is fully stable (15 minutes at 50°C, [9]), we conclude that the mCherry β-barrel fold is less stable than that of the OmpA TM domain (Figure 1B). Therefore, the anti-DsRed can be used to determine the folding state of the OmpA TM domain, because the denatured mCherry will become visible Etofibrate before OmpA has unfolded, and any gel-shifts observed can be unequivocally attributed to the OmpA TM domain, because mCherry itself becomes visible only after it has unfolded, and does not exhibit heat modifiability. To test the heat-modifiability of the OmpA-177-(SA-1)-mCherry fusion, an immunoblot containing cell lysates heated at different temperatures was probed with anti-DsRed (shown in Figure 1C). Starting at the far right lane (99°C), two bands are visible, a low and high molecular weight band (LMW and HMW respectively). At RT and 37°C, only a faint LMW (degradation) band at 26 kDa was detected.