Figure 1.

Assembly of the tetanus-botulinum chimera from two components. (A) mCherry-tagged tetanus binding domain (left) efficiently binds mouse hippocampal neurons in culture within 20 min (right). (B) Botulinum enzyme type A was stapled to the tetanus receptor binding domain using a fluorescently labeled stapling peptide (top schematic). Coomassie-stained SDS-PAGE gel (bottom) showing assembly of the clostridial chimera in the presence of the stapling peptide in a 30-min reaction. The stapled product is resistant to SDS indicating an irreversible assembly.