Calsequestrin (CSQ) is a calcium-binding protein that is highly soluble and has potential as a solubility-enhancing fusion tag in recombinant protein expression. Furthermore, it enables robust purification through calcium-induced precipitation followe...
Calsequestrin (CSQ) is a calcium-binding protein that is highly soluble and has potential as a solubility-enhancing fusion tag in recombinant protein expression. Furthermore, it enables robust purification through calcium-induced precipitation followed by resolubilization by chelating agents such as EDTA. Despite these advantages in protein expression and purification, the application of CSQ-tagged proteins in research, including immunoassays and cell-based analyses, has been limited by the lack of dependable anti-CSQ detection reagents. In this study, we selected single-domain antibodies (sdAbs) against CSQ from a phage-displayed chicken VH libraries generated from CSQ-immunized chickens. After biopanning, CSQ-specific VH sdAb clones were isolated and expressed as VH human kappa light chain constant region (VH-Cκ) fusion proteins in E. coli. Among them, the PE06 clone was selected for further studies. Following conjugation to HRP and Alexa Fluor 647 fluorescent dye, PE06 VH-Cκ fusion protein was successfully applied to enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay, immunoblot, and flow cytometry analyses to detect CSQ-tagged sdAbs expressed in E. coli. Our study opens the possibility for chemically defined antibodies to be expressed as recombinant antibodies fused with CSQ, such as scFv-CSQ fusion proteins, and applied to various research applications.