Promega Corporation in conjunction with Kazusa DNA Research Institute (KDRI) in Chiba Prefecture, Japan will soon offer vectors encoding Promega HaloTag™ with genetic content from KDRI’s catalog. The KDRI content derives from large, typically difficult to clone human genes. In addition, there will be a comprehensive catalog of human transcription factors commonly used in research and drug discovery. As a result, researchers can gain ready access to the multi-functional HaloTag fused to these larger proteins.

The initial offering encompasses over 1900 KDRI ORF clones in Promega Flexi® vector. It includes the coding sequence for HaloTag, a multifunctional protein tag that can be used for cellular imaging as well as protein purification and immobilization. Promega will soon launch protein arrays for functional studies that utilize HaloTag covalent binding properties for binding proteins to glass slides, while cellular imaging with fluorescent ligands to HaloTag is well established. The first vectors will be available at the start of 2009 through KDRI (https://www.kazusa.or.jp/kop/) and will be distributed globally.

“We believe this new genomic resource will be widely accepted in the world’s scientific communities, and hope this will contribute to the solution of problems in healthcare through the understanding of various gene functions which, in turn, should facilitate drug development as well,” said Dr. Michio Oishi, President of KDRI foundation and Research Director of KDRI.

Promega and KDRI have had a research collaboration for several years and this agreement is a natural progression from that collaboration. KDRI plans to continue to expand the genetic resource for HaloTag fusion proteins by adding more open reading frame (ORF) clones collected by an international ORFeome collaboration in which KDRI is one of the active participants (https://www.kazusa.or.jp/e/index.html).