The glutathione S-transferase (GST)-Bcl-GL recombinant protein was expressed in Escherichia coli strain BL21 codon-plus RIL competent cells (Stratagene). Purification of the recombinant proteins was performed using Glutathione Sepharose 4B beads (GE Healthcare) under nondenaturing conditions according to the supplier's instructions. For confirmation of direct binding of BCL-GL and MELK, we removed GST from GST-fused BCL-GL protein using PreScission protease (GE Healthcare) according to the supplier's instructions.Soluble fractions were filtered with 0.8 μm syringe filters and applied into a Ni-NTA affinity column pre-equilibrated with 30 mM Tris-HCl (pH 8.0), 50 mM NaCl, 5 mM β-mercaptoethanol. Target protein complexes (the Aα subunit with GST-tag and SV40 ST with His-tag) were eluted with elution buffer (30 mM Tris-HCl [pH 8.0], 50 mM NaCl, 300 mM imidazole, 5 mM β-mercaptoethanol) and dialyzed overnight at 4 °C in 30 mM Tris-HCl (pH 8.0), 50 mM NaCl, 5 mM DTT. Dialyzed protein was applied to a GST affinity column to remove free SV40 ST, and on-column cleavage with TEV protease was performed at 4 °C overnight. The flow-through fraction of the GST column was reapplied into the Ni-NTA column to remove cleaved His-tag and TEV protease.