The first complete in vitro reconstitution of protein translation from E. coli was accomplished in 2001 in Dr. Takuya Ueda’s lab at the University of Tokyo. This became known as the “PURE” system, which stands for “Protein synthesis Using Recombinant Elements” (1). This system was then commercialized as the PURESYSTEM^® by the Post Genome Institute (PGI) (Tokyo, Japan). Except for the ribosomes and tRNAs, which are highly purified from E. coli, the PURE system reconstitutes the E. coli translation machinery with fully recombinant proteins.

PURExpress^® from NEB is based on the PURESYSTEM^® from PGI, and improves on the original “Classic II” Kit by optimizing components to increase yield of protein synthesis.

(1) Shimizu, Y., et al. (2001) Nat. Biotechnol. 19, 751–755. PMID: 11479568

PURE System Technology was originally developed by Dr. Takuya Ueda at the University of Tokyo and commercialized as the
PURESYSTEM^® by BioComber (Tokyo, Japan).
PURExpress^® is a registered trademark of New England Biolabs, Inc.