Highly Selective Lysine Acylation in Proteins Using a Lys-His Tag Sequence

Chemical modification of proteins has numerous applications, but it has been challenging to achieve the required high degree of selectivity on lysine amino groups. Recently, we described the highly selective acylation of proteins with an N-terminal Gly-His(6) segment. This tag promoted acylation of the N-terminal N-alpha-amine resulting in stable conjugates. Herein, we report the peptide sequences His(n)-Lys-His(m), which we term Lys-His tags. In combination with simple acylating agents, they facilitate the acylation of the designated Lys N-epsilon-amine under mild conditions and with high selectivity over native Lys residues. We show that the Lys-His tags, which are 7 to 10 amino acids in length and still act as conventional His tags, can be inserted in proteins at the C-terminus or in loops, thus providing high flexibility regarding the site of modification. Finally, the selective and efficient acylation of the therapeutic antibody Rituximab, pure or mixed with other proteins, demonstrates the scope of the Lys-His tag acylation method.