Evette, This is quite intriguing. At the outset I want to say that just because glycoslyation is not essential for function it still may be absolutely necessary for correct trafficking. Obviously in your case the mutant has been made successfully in CHO cells, assuming the mutant transcript is present in Pichia I wonder if this is an effect of fusing it to the alpha mating factor secretion signal. Have you - or anyone else for that matter - tried alternative secretion signals ? Sorry but I have two more questions for you. How do you lyse you cells to see production of the protein in the pellet ? I found boiling Pichia in SDS buffer pretty inefficient, do you use glass beads ? Secondly Im curious as to what residues are present when you align you protein to the related non-natively glycosylated proteins (that where successfully expressed in Pichia) specifically at the site of glycosylation.
Stephen -- Stephen Weeks, Ph. D. Drexel University College of Medicine Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology Room 10102 New College Building 245 N. 15th St. Philadelphia, PA 19102 Phone: (+) 215-762-7316 Fax: (+) 215-762-4452