Abstract
Heterologous expression of plant cellulose synthase (CESA) and its purification has remained a challenge for decades impeding detailed biophysical, biochemical and structural characterization of this key enzyme. An in-depth knowledge of structure and function of CESA proteins would enable us to better understand the hierarchical structure of the plant cell wall. Here, we report a detailed, and reproducible method of purification of catalytic domain of CESA1 from Arabidopsis thaliana that was recombinantly expressed in Escherichia coli. The method relies on a two stage purification procedure to obtain the catalytic domain in monomer and trimer forms. The biochemical and biophysical data including low resolution structures of the protein have been published (Vandavasi et al., 2016). Currently the crystallization studies of this protein are underway.
