Q: How do I order Pichia Expression Classic or Pichia GlycoSwitch® expression kits?
A: We have made ordering either system as simple as a click to either the Life Technologies Ordering Page for Pichia Classic or to the BioGrammatics Ordering Page for Pichia GlycoSwitch®.
See Try Pichia .
Q: What is the difference between Pichia Classic and Pichia GlycoSwitch®?
A: Pichia Classic contains the original Pichia system and various improvements sold by Life Technologies. Pichia Classic is ideal for producing non-glycosylated proteins or glycosylated proteins where yeast glycosylation does not present a problem for protein function. Pichia Classic will typically attach high mannose structures to glycosylation sites on glycoproteins and these high mannose structures may be problematic for certain proteins. Pichia GlycoSwitch® is a new system that has been developed to eliminate unwanted high mannose structures and make Pichia more broadly applicable to the recombinant production of glycoproteins. Pichia GlycoSwitch® kits contain engineered Pichia strains that can only incorporate a small sugar with five mannose residues (Man5). The SuperMan5 strain is the workhorse strain of the Pichia GlycoSwitch® system and various vectors are available to further engineer more human-like glycosylation of your protein of interest.
Q: Which system do I choose?
A: It all depends on your particular protein and intended use. If your protein is a glycoprotein intended for therapeutic use and the glycosylation is important for folding, processing or biological activity, then Pichia GlycoSwitch® is the recommended system to try. If your protein is used as a reagent, diagnostic or in industrial applications, either system may be appropriate, and it is recommended that you try both systems and compare the products expressed in each one.
Q: What is Pichia pink?
A: Pichia pink is a yeast protein expression system offered by Life Technologies that consists of various strains and vectors. The Pichia strains in the system are Strain 1 (ade–), Strain 2 (ade–, pep4–), Strain 3 (ade–, prb1–), and Strain 4 (ade–, prb1–, pep4–) and all are ade2 auxotrophs that are unable to grow in the absence of adenine. The ade2 gene encodes a specific carboxylase, under transcriptional control by adenine, that catalyzes one step in the biosynthesis of purine nucleotides. Mutations or deletion of ade2 leads to purine precursor accumulation in vacuoles and hence, colonies are a red color. Providing the ade2 gene in the vector system, one can select positively transformed clones due to their white color.
While RCT is not associated with the selling of the Pichia pink system, Strains 2, 3 and 4 are available to RCT’s licensees of Pichia Classic. If you are interested in having these strains added to your Pichia Classic license, please contact Brad Morie at 520-748-4413 or by email