A system for dual protein expression in Pichia pastoris and Escherichia coli

We have constructed a novel Pichia pastoris/Escherichia coli dual expression vector for the production of recombinant proteins in both host systems. In this vector, an E. coli T7 promoter region, including the ribosome binding site from the phage T7 major capsid protein for efficient translation is placed downstream from the yeast alcohol oxidase promoter (AOX). For detection and purification of the target protein, the vector contains an amino-terminal oligohistidine domain (His6) followed by the hemaglutinine epitope (HA) adjacent to the cloning sites. A P. pastoris autonomous replicating sequence (PARS) was integrated enabling simple propagation and recovery of plasmids from yeast and bacteria (1). In the present study, the expression of human proteins in P. pastoris and E. coli was compared using this single expression vector. For this purpose we have subcloned a cDNA expression library deriving from human fetal brain (2) into our dual expression T7 vector and investigated 96 randomly picked clones. After sequencing, 29 clones in the correct reading frame have been identified, their plasmids isolated and shuttled from yeast to bacteria. All proteins were expressed soluble in P. pastoris, whereas in E. coli only 31% could be purified under native conditions. Our data indicates that this dual expression vector allows the economic expression and purification of proteins in different hosts without subcloning.     

Very high expression of an anti-carcinoembryonic antigen single chain Fv antibody fragment in the yeast Pichia pastoris

In this paper we report the development of a recombinant strain of the yeast Pichia pastoris, which secretes an anti-carcinoembryonic antigen single chain Fv (scFv) antibody fragment to the culture supernatant as a biologically active protein, at levels of 1.2 g l(-1). The yeast scFv was purified by IMAC, with a final yield of approximately 0.440 g of 93% pure scFv per liter of culture supernatant. The specific activity in ELISA of the yeast scFv was almost three times higher than that of a bacterial periplasmic counterpart. These results reaffirm that the yeast P. pastoris is a suitable host for high level production of scFv antibody fragments with potential in vivo diagnostic and therapeutic applications.     

蚓激酶基因的克隆及在毕赤酵母中的表达

以赤子爱胜蚓(Eisenia fetida)体内的总RNA为模板,通过RT-PCR方法扩增含自身信号肽的蚓激酶基因F238,将其克隆到pUCm-T载体上,并进行测序。GenBank登录号为:DQ202401。测序结果表明基因全长为738bp,共编码245个氨基酸,包括7个氨基酸的信号肽序列和238个氨基酸的成熟肽序列。与粉正蚓(Lumbricus rubellus)F-III-2相比,核苷酸与氨基酸序列的同源性均为99%,仅存在2个碱基的差异,导致2个氨基酸的突变。通过生物信息学方法对蛋白质的理化及结构特性进行分析预测,F238的等电点为4.61,含有11个半胱氨酸,形成3个二硫键。蛋白质分子主要由β折叠组成,具有丝氨酸活性中心,属丝氨酸蛋白酶超家族胰蛋白酶类。以重组质粒pUCm-T-F238为模板,通过PCR方法扩增去信号肽的蚓激酶基因F238-m,构建毕赤酵母(Pichia pastoris)表达载体pPIC9-F238-m,将其线性化后用电穿孔法导入酵母宿主菌GS115中。在MM和MD平板上筛选表型,经甲醇诱导后,SDS-PAGE分析显示表达产物的分子量为28kDa左右,纤维平板法测定活力最高可达100U/mL。     

纳豆激酶基因的克隆及其在毕赤酵母中的表达

纳豆激酶纳是从日本传统食品纳豆中发现的一类具有溶栓效果的蛋白酶,由于其具有安全,高效,作用时间长,易吸收,廉价等优点,现在正成为一个开发治疗血栓类疾病药物的研究热点。从本实验室保存的一株高溶栓的纳豆杆菌N07出发,提取总基因组DNA,利用PCR手段扩增获得了纳豆激酶长为825bp的成熟肽基因片段。构建重组表达质粒pPICZaA-NK,经EcoR I、Xba I双酶切、PCR、测序验证得出重组表达质粒上的外源基因即为825bp的目的片段;将重组质粒pPICZaA-NK用内切酶Sac I线性化后电击导入毕赤酵母X33,通过含Zeocin的YPDS平板筛选获得重组酵母。重组酵母在BMMY培养基中发酵培养,用1%甲醇诱导目的蛋白表达。用纤维蛋白平板法检测发现发酵上清具有纤溶活性,经硫酸铵盐析、透析、Sephadex-G50过柱等步骤分离得到纳豆激酶蛋白,进行SDS-PAGE鉴定表明,表达的纳豆激酶蛋白分子量为27KD。以尿激酶为标准,实验所得纳豆激酶发酵上清液溶栓活性约为195U/mL。成功的将纳豆激酶成熟肽基因在毕赤酵母X33中表达,为纳豆激酶基因工程进一步研究奠定基础。     

Cloning and heterologous expression of xylanase from Pichia stipitis in Escherichia coli

AIMS: The main goal of this study was to characterize the xylanase (xynA) gene from Pichia stipitis NRRL Y-11543. METHODS AND RESULTS: The xylanase gene was cloned into pUC19 in Escherichia coli DH5alphaF' and selected by growth on RBB-xylan. All functional clones contained a recombinant plasmid with an insert of 2.4 kbp, as determined by restriction mapping. The nucleotide sequence of the P. stipitis xylanase gene consisted of 1146 bp and encoded a protein of 381 amino acids with a molecular weight of 43 649 Da. The sequence contained a putative 20-amino acid N-terminal signal sequence and four N-linked glycosylation sites. The Km values for non-glycosylated and glycosylated xylanases were 1.4 mg ml-1 and 4.2 mg ml-1, respectively, and Vmax values were 0.8 and 0.082 micromol min-1 mg-1 protein, respectively. CONCLUSION: Xylanase, a rarely found enzyme in yeast species, has been characterized in detail. SIGNIFICANCE AND IMPACT OF THE STUDY: The results of this study can be used to develop better xylanase-utilizing yeast strains.     

Cloning of Trypanosoma cruzi trans-sialidase and expression in Pichia pastoris

Trypanosoma cruzi, the agent causing Chagas' disease, expresses an enzyme that transfers sialic acids among glycoproteins and glycolipids both from the host cell surface and its own surface. This enzyme, called trans-sialidase, is different from higher eukaryotic sialyltransferases in that it does not accept cytidine 5'-monophospho-N-acetylneuraminic acid as a donor substrate. Also, the common glycosyltransferase structure is not present. To study this enzyme, an active member was cloned and expressed in higher eukaryotic cells. Expression of recombinant enzyme was achieved in the methylotrophic yeast Pichia pastoris. The N-terminal fusion of a secretion signal and the C-terminal addition of an epitope tag resulted not only in high expression levels, but also enabled easy detection and purification. Using P. pastoris, we obtained about 5 mg of enzymatically active trans-sialidase per liter of induced culture medium.     

耐碱性甘露聚糖酶基因的克隆及其在毕赤酵母中的表达

通过功能平板从土壤中筛选得到含甘露聚糖酶基因的耐碱菌株。构建其基因组文库,从中筛选到甘露聚糖酶基因TM1并测序分析,用BLAST分析表明,TM1的氨基酸序列与其他在GenBank发表的甘露聚糖酶的氨基酸序列的同源性均低于60%,故确定其为一个新的甘露聚糖酶基因(GenBank登录号为AY623903)。将此基因去除信号肽后的编码序列克隆到表达载体pHBM905C上,得到重组质粒pHBM1201。经SalⅠ酶切后分别转化毕赤酵母(Pichiapastoris)KM71、GS115、SMD1168,得到分泌表达的重组毕赤酵母。挑选相对表达量最高的重组毕赤酵母SMD1168-3在摇瓶中诱导产酶,对该酶的粗酶进行酶学性质分析表明,其最适反应温度为55℃,最适PH值为7.5,以魔芋粉为底物所测得的最高酶活为41.8U,半衰期为1h,在80℃保温5min其酶活由最初酶活的77%下降到11%,温度下降到55℃后活性可恢复到最初酶活的60%以上。     

狐狸生长激素基因的克隆及其在毕赤酵母中的表达

为制备重组狐狸生长激素(fGH),采用RT-PCR方法,从银狐垂体中扩增fGHcDNA基因,利用SnaBI和NotI位点将fGH基因插入到酵母分泌型表达载体pPIC9K中α-因子信号肽的下游,构建成fGH基因的酵母分泌型表达载体pPIC9K/fGH,载体经SalI酶切线性化后,通过电转移将线性化的pPIC9K/fGH转化到组氨酸缺陷型酵母宿主菌GS115中。然后利用不含氨基酸的以葡萄糖为碳源的培养基(MD)和以甲醇为碳源的培养基(MM)筛选出组氨酸His+型和甲醇利用正型(Mut+)酵母重组体,再经G418加压筛选出高拷贝fGH基因的重组酵母,经摇瓶发酵培养和甲醇诱导使fGH进行分泌表达。结果表明本实验扩增的fGH基因序列与GenBank发表的序列基本一致,发酵液经SDS-PAGE和Western blotting检测证明构建的重组酵母能够分泌表达fGH,表达的fGH占发酵液总蛋白的34%,表达量达119mg/L发酵液。     

N-Linked glycosylation of antibody fragments in Escherichia coli

Glycosylation is the predominant protein modification to diversify the functionality of proteins. In particular, N-linked protein glycosylation can increase the biophysical and pharmacokinetic properties of therapeutic proteins. However, the major challenges in studying the consequences of protein glycosylation on a molecular level are caused by glycan heterogeneities of currently used eukaryotic expression systems, but the discovery of the N-linked protein glycosylation system in the ε-proteobacterium Campylobacter jejuni and its functional transfer to Escherichia coli opened up the possibility to produce glycoproteins in bacteria. Toward this goal, we elucidated whether antibody fragments, a potential class of therapeutic proteins, are amenable to bacterial N-linked glycosylation, thereby improving their biophysical properties. We describe a new strategy for glycoengineering and production of quantitative amounts of glycosylated scFv 3D5 at high purity. The analysis revealed the presence of a homogeneous N-glycan that significantly increased the stability and the solubility of the 3D5 antibody fragment. The process of bacterial N-linked glycosylation offers the possibility to specifically address and alter the biophysical properties of proteins.     

High level expression of human enteropeptidase light chain in Pichia pastoris

Human enterokinase (enteropeptidase, rhEP), a serine protease expressed in the proximal part of the small intestine, converts the inactive form of trypsinogen to active trypsin by endoproteolytic cleavage. The high specificity of the target site makes enterokinase an ideal tool for cleaving fusion proteins at defined cleavage sites. The mature active enzyme is comprised of two disulfide-linked polypeptide chains. The heavy chain anchors the enzyme in the intestinal brush border membrane, whereas the light chain represents the catalytic enzyme subunit. The synthetic gene encoding human enteropeptidase light chain with His-tag added at the C-terminus to facilitate protein purification was cloned into Pichia pastoris expression plasmids under the control of an inducible AOX1 or constitutive promoters GAP and AAC. Cultivation media and conditions were optimized as well as isolation and purification of the target protein. Up to 4 mg/L of rhEP was obtained in shake-flask experiments and the expression level of about 60-70 mg/L was achieved when cultivating in lab-scale fermentors. The constitutively expressing strains proved more efficient and less labor-demanding than the inducible ones. The rhEP was immobilized on AV 100 sorbent (Iontosorb) to allow repeated use of enterokinase, showing specific activity of 4 U/mL of wet matrix.     

Cloning and expression of Trichoderma reesei cellobiohydrolase I in Pichia pastoris.

Pichia pastoris was transformed with the Trichoderma reesei cbh1 gene, and the recombinant enzyme was purified and analyzed kinetically and by circular dichroism. The P. pastoris rCBH I was recognized by MoAb raised to T. reesei CBH I but was found in multiple molecular weight species on SDS-PAGE gels. Carbohydrate content determination and SDS-PAGE western analysis indicated that the recombinant protein was hyperglycosylated, although a species very similar in molecular weight to the T. reesei enzyme could be isolated chromatographically. The P. pastoris rCBH I also demonstrated activity toward soluble and insoluble substrates (i.e., pNPL and Sigmacell), although at a level significantly lower than the wild-type enzyme. More seriously, the yeast-expressed enzyme showed non-wild-type secondary structure by circular dichroism. We conclude that P. pastoris may not serve as an adequate host for the site-directed mutagenesis of T. reesei CBH I.     

Expression of chondroitin-4- O -sulfotransferase in Escherichia coli and Pichia pastoris

Chondroitin sulfates are linear sulfated polysaccharides called glycosaminoglycans. They are important nutraceutical and pharmaceutical products that are biosynthesized through the action of chondroitin sulfotransferases on either an unsulfated chondroitin or a dermatan polysaccharide precursor. While the enzymes involved in the biosynthesis of chondroitin sulfates are well known, the cloning end expression of these membrane-bound Golgi enzymes continue to pose challenges. The major chondroitin-4-sulfotransferase, Homo sapiens C4ST-1, had been previously cloned and expressed from mammalian CHO, COS-7, and HEK 293 cells, and its activity was shown to require glycosylation. In the current study, a C4ST-1 construct was designed and expressed in both Escherichia coli and Pichia pastoris in its non-glycosylated and glycosylated forms. Both constructs showed similar activity albeit different kinetic parameters when acting on a microbially prepared unsulfated chondroitin substrate. Moreover, the glycosylated form of C4ST-1 showed lower stability than the non-glycosylated form.     

Production of fluorescent single-chain antibody fragments in Escherichia coli

We describe a novel vector-host system suitable for the efficient preparation of fluorescent single-chain antibody Fv fragments (scFv) in Escherichia coli. The previously described pscFv1F4 vector used for the bacterial expression of functional scFv to the E6 protein of human papillomavirus type 16 was modified by appending to its C-terminus the green fluorescent protein (GFP). The expression of the scFv1F4-GFP fusion proteins was monitored by analyzing of the typical GFP fluorescence of the transformed cells under UV illumination. The brightest signal was obtained when scFv1F4 was linked to the cycle 3 GFP variant (GFPuv) and expressed in the cytoplasm of AD494(DE3) bacteria under control of the arabinose promoter. Although the scFv1F4 expressed under these conditions did not contain disulfide bridges, about 1% of the molecules were able to bind antigen. Fluorescence analysis of antigen-coated agarose beads incubated with the cytoplasmic scFv-GFP complexes showed that a similar proportion of fusions retained both E6-binding and green-light-emitting activities. The scFv1F4-GFPuv molecules were purified by affinity chromatography and successfully used to detect viral E6 protein in transfected COS cells by fluorescence microscopy. When an anti-beta-galactosidase scFv, which had previously been adapted to cytoplasmic expression at high levels, was used in this system, it was possible to produce large amounts of functional fluorescent antibody fragments. This indicates that these labeled scFvs may have many applications in fluorescence-based single-step immunoassays.     

基因工程抗体在巴斯德毕赤酵母中表达的研究进展

简述了运用巴斯德毕赤酵母系统表达基因工程抗体从构建载体到表达的一般过程,及如何改善和提高抗体的表达。侧重介绍运用该系统获得抗体高表达、高产量的研究近况。     

Expression and purification of human tryptophan hydroxylase from Escherichia coli and Pichia pastoris

Tryptophan hydroxylase (TPH) from several mammalian species has previously been cloned and expressed in bacteria. However, due to the instability of wild type TPH, most successful attempts have been limited to the truncated forms of this enzyme. We have expressed full-length human TPH in large amounts in Escherichia coli and Pichia pastoris and purified the enzyme using new purification protocols. When expressed as a fusion protein in E. coli, the maltose-binding protein-TPH (MBP-TPH) fusion protein was more soluble than native TPH and the other fusion proteins and had a 3-fold higher specific activity than the His-Patch-thioredoxin-TPH and 6xHis-TPH fusion proteins. The purified MBP-TPH had a V(max) of 296 nmol/min/mg and a K(m) for L-tryptophan of 7.5+/-0.7 microM, compared to 18+/-5 microM for the partially purified enzyme from P. pastoris. To overcome the unfavorable properties of TPH, the stabilizing effect of different agents was investigated. Both tryptophan and glycerol had a stabilizing effect, whereas dithiothreitol, (6R)-5,6,7,8,-tetrahydrobiopterin, and Fe(2+) inactivated the enzyme. Irrespective of expression conditions, both native TPH expressed in bacteria or yeast, or TPH fusion proteins expressed in bacteria exhibited a strong tendency to aggregate and precipitate during purification, indicating that this is an intrinsic property of this enzyme. This supports previous observations that the enzyme in vivo may be stabilized by additional interactions.     

Effective enhancement of Pseudomonas stutzeri D-phenylglycine aminotransferase functional expression in Pichia pastoris by co-expressing Escherichia coli GroEL-GroES

ABSTRACT: BACKGROUND: D-phenylglycine aminotransferase (D-PhgAT) of Pseudomonas stutzeri ST-201 catalyzes the reversible stereo-inverting transamination potentially useful in the application for synthesis of D-phenylglycine and D-4-hydroxyphenylglycine using L-glutamate as a low cost amino donor substrate in one single step. The enzyme is a relatively hydrophobic homodimeric intracellular protein difficult to express in the soluble functionally active form. Over-expression of the dpgA gene in E. coli resulted in the majority of the D-PhgAT aggregated into insoluble inclusion bodies that failed to be re-natured. Expression in Pichia pastoris was explored as an alternative route for high level production of the D-PhgAT. RESULTS: Intracellular expression of the codon-optimized synthetic dpgA gene under the PAOX1 promoter in P. pastoris resulted in inactive D-PhgAT associated with insoluble cellular fraction and very low level of D-PhgAT activity in the soluble fraction. Manipulation of culture conditions such as addition of sorbitol to induce intracellular accumulation of osmolytes, addition of benzyl alcohol to induce chaperone expression, or lowering incubation temperature to slow down protein expression and folding rates all failed to increase the active D-PhgAT yield. Co-expression of E. coli chaperonins GroEL-GroES with the D-PhgAT dramatically improved the soluble active enzyme production. Increasing gene dosage of both the dpgA and those of the chaperones further increased functional D-PhgAT yield up to 14400-fold higher than when the dpgA was expressed alone. Optimization of cultivation condition further increased D-PhgAT activity yield from the best co-expressing strain by 1.2-fold. CONCLUSIONS: This is the first report on the use of bacterial chaperones co-expressions to enhance functional intracellular expression of bacterial enzyme in P. pastoris. Only two bacterial chaperone genes groEL and groES were sufficient for dramatic enhancement of functionally active D-PhgAT expression in this yeast. With the optimized gene dosage and chaperone combinations, P. pastoris can be attractive for intracellular expression of bacterial proteins since it can grow to a very high cell density which is translated into the higher volumetric product yield than the E. coli or other bacterial systems.     

极端耐热木聚糖酶基因在大肠杆菌和毕赤酵母中的高效表达

以海栖热袍菌 (Thermotoga maritima) MSB8菌株基因组DNA为模板,通过PCR扩增出木聚糖酶（XylanaseB）基因, 将此基因克隆至大肠杆菌表达载体pET_28a（+）和毕赤酵母表达载体pPIC9K,并分别转化大肠杆菌 BL21和毕赤酵母GS115。该木聚糖酶在大肠杆菌细胞中表达量高, 但不能分泌; 而在毕赤酵母细胞的表达产物可分泌至胞外。酶学性质分析表明,此酶分子量约为40kD,其最适反应温度为90℃, 最适反应pH值为6.65,且在碱性条件下稳定,具有重要的工业应用前景。     

大口鲶ob基因的克隆及其在毕赤酵母中的表达

1994年Zhang等人利用定位克隆技术首次成功地克隆出小鼠肥胖基因(obese gene,ob基因)及人类同源序列后[1],其他动物如鸡、鸭、猪等的肥胖基因结构和部分功能相继得到了报道,但关于鱼类ob基因的结构和功能研究报道较少.