HIV-1 protease expression in the laboratory is demanding because of its high cytotoxicity, making it difficult to express in bacterial expression systems such as Escherichia coli. To overcome these challenges, HIV-1 protease fusion with solubility enhancing tags helps to mitigate its cytotoxic effect and drive its expression as a soluble protein. Therefore, this review focuses on the expression of bioactive HIV-1 protease using solubility-enhancing fusion tags in Escherichia coli and summarises the characteristic features of the different common fusion tags that have been used in the expression of HIV-1 protease. This review will assist researchers with their choice of protein fusion tag for HIV-1 protease expression.

HIV-1蛋白酶在实验室中的表达要求很高，因为它具有很高的细胞毒性，难以在大肠杆菌等细菌表达系统中表达。为了克服这些挑战，HIV-1 蛋白酶与溶解度增强标签的融合有助于减轻其细胞毒性作用并推动其作为可溶性蛋白质的表达。因此，本综述重点关注在大肠杆菌中使用溶解度增强融合标签表达具有生物活性的 HIV-1 蛋白酶，并总结了用于表达 HIV-1 蛋白酶的不同常见融合标签的特征。这篇综述将帮助研究人员选择用于 HIV-1 蛋白酶表达的蛋白质融合标签。