Emerging Areas in Bioengineering

Chapter 2Over-Expression of Functionally Active Inclusion Bodies of Enzymes in Recombinant Escherichia coli

Wen-Chien Lee and Shao-Yen Hsu

2.1 Introduction

The Escherichia coli system is suited for over-expressing recombinant proteins, such as enzymes, because of its advantages of genetic simplicity, fast growth rates, a relatively low cost of maintenance and well-established genetic manipulation techniques, and large-scale and high cell-density cultivation [1–4]. However, a major disadvantage of E. coli is the propensity toward the formation of undesirable insoluble protein aggregates during over-expression of target proteins. Such aggregates are known as inclusion bodies (IBs), which can be formed in both the cytoplasmic and periplasmic ...