The recombinant GST- and Hisx6-fused proteins were expressed in E. coli (BL21, DE3) as described previously.10 (link), 42 (link), 53 (link), 54 (link) The resulting recombinant proteins were purified using Sepharose 4 Fast Flow purification resin (GE Healthcare Life Sciences) for GST tagged and the TALON CellThru Resin (ClonTech) for the Hisx6-peptide fused proteins according to the instructions of the manufacturers. The GST was removed from the target proteins by thrombin (GE Healthcare Life Sciences) cleavage, while the GST-fusion proteins still bound to the purification resin.