Prokaryotic expression and purification of tomato Cnr protein

Tomato fruit ripening mutant colorless non-ripening (Cm) is an autosomal dominant mutant, obtained by natural mutation. The fruit of Cm mutant was obviously immature, and the softening and lycopene accumulation of the Cm fruit was significantly inhibited during the fruit ripening. In this work, we cloned the Cm gene from the red ripe tomato fruit by RT-PCR, and constructed a prokaryotic expression vector. And the recombinant Cnr protein was induced by 1 mM IPTG in Escherichia coli BL21 (DE3), and purified by MBP affinity chromatography.