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Joined 2026-09-21 Message
Incoming links: T. P. Hopp
T. P. Hopp 2026-11-05
T. P. Hopp led the 1988 paper introducing the short peptide marker now called the FLAG tag. The engineered eight-residue sequence DYKDDDDK supplied an antibody-recognized handle for detecting and purifying recombinant proteins. Because the handle was shared, the same recognition reagent could be used with otherwise different target proteins.[ref]
A Short Polypeptide Marker Sequence Useful for Recombinant Protein Identification and Purification by T. P. Hopp and others. Abstract: eight-residue N-terminal tag, antibody detection and immunoaffinity purification
The experiment connects sequence design to a practical measurement problem: an arbitrary target need not already have its own suitable antibody. Tag accessibility and its effect on the target still matter in a new application; success for the proteins tested does not establish that every fusion is functionally unchanged.