Displayless technique selects proteins in 'outer space'.(Brief Article)

A technique for the rapid screening of ligands that bind proteins expressed in the 'outer space' of bacterial cells has been developed by researchers at the University of Texas.

The technique, known as periplasmic expression with cytometric screening (PECS), exploits the ability of bacteria to express proteins in the space between their cell wall and membrane -- or periplasm. PEGS should expand the range and accelerate the discovery of novel proteins, as well as screening for the drug molecules that bind to them.

Gang Chen, researcher at the Institute for Cell and Molecular Biology, University of Texas in Austin, and co-workers have used PEGS to express a …