Keywords ion pairs; protein design; protein-protein interactions; semisynthesisCoulombic forces play an important role in facilitating protein-protein interactions. It has been demonstrated that a strong electrostatic potential between two interacting proteins correlates with a fast rate of association and a strong binding affinity. [1] Indeed, this principle has been exploited to enhance the binding properties of engineered protein interfaces. [2] Nonetheless, little research has focused on utilizing intermolecular ion pairs to modulate specificity in protein-protein interactions. [3][4][5] Naturally split inteins are a potentially interesting system for engineering electrostatically driven specificity, as the formation of a catalytically competent structure requires the association of two oppositely charged protomers. In their endogenous environment, split inteins catalyze protein transsplicing (PTS, Scheme 1) of essential gene fragments, and thus are under evolutionary pressure to associate rapidly with high fidelity and dissociate slowly post-catalysis to prevent the re-formation of unproductive complexes. Out of their native context, split inteins have seen widespread use in a number of biotechnological applications, as a result of their capacity to ligate flanking protein sequences (exteins) in trans. [6] Applications of PTS include segmental isotopic labeling of proteins for NMR spectroscopy, [7] protein immobilization, [8] the labeling of proteins with extrinsic probes, [9] protein and peptide cyclization, [10] and control of protein function. [11,12] Despite the utility of PTS, little is known about what drives efficient association of split intein fragments. Sequence alignments of naturally split inteins show highly conserved charge segregation, with acidic residues concentrated at specific positions on the N-intein and basic residues conserved on the C-intein (N-and C-terminal protomers, Figure 1a). [13] Furthermore, a bioinformatic sequence analysis of the intein family indicates that this charge segregation is significantly more prevalent in naturally split inteins than intact ones ( Figure 1c). Interestingly, when the conserved charged residues are mapped onto the structure determined by NMR spectrocopy of the wild-type DnaE intein from Nostoc punctiforme (Npu WT ), many are found to be participating in intermolecular ion pairs and ion triads (Figure 1b).