Generation of an AraC-araBAD promoter-regulated T7 expression system

An alternative and facile delivery system for T7 RNA polymerase has been devised and constructed. T7 gene 1 has been placed under control of the araBAD promoter element regulated by the AraC protein. Cotransformation of the resultant plasmid, pTara, with one containing a target gene under T7 promoter-regulated expression potentially allows repression by glucose and induction by arabinose in the range of 0.5 to 20 mM sugar concentration. To demonstrate the efficacy of this expression system, the p53 gene under T7 promoter control in two different plasmids was expressed in Escherichia coli using pTara as the source of T7 RNA polymerase. Repression and induction of p53 were achieved in both a lower and higher copy number plasmid, although the levels of induction were higher with the lower copy number expression vector. Cotransformation of an expression plasmid with pTara provides a low-cost method of T7 RNA polymerase-regulated expression that can be fine-tuned using glucose and arabinose concentrations to balance protein expression with potential solubility or toxicity problems.     

ompT encodes the Escherichia coli outer membrane protease that cleaves T7 RNA polymerase during purification.

Bacteriophage T7 RNA polymerase is stable in Escherichia coli but very susceptible to cleavage by at least one endoprotease after cell lysis. The major source of this endoprotease activity was found to be localized to the outer membrane of the cell. A rapid whole-cell assay was developed to screen different strains for the presence of this proteolytic activity. Using this assay, we identified some common laboratory strains that totally lack the protease. Genetic and Southern analyses of these null strains allowed us to conclude that the protease that cleaves T7 RNA polymerase is OmpT (formerly termed protein a), a known outer membrane endoprotease, and that the null phenotype results from deletion of the OmpT structural gene. A recombinant plasmid carrying the ompT gene enables these deletion strains to synthesize OmpT and converts them to a protease-positive phenotype. The plasmid led to overproduction of OmpT protein and protease activity in the E. coli K-12 and B strains we used, but only weak expression in the E. coli C strain, C1757. This strain-dependent difference in ompT expression was investigated with respect to the known influence of envZ on OmpT synthesis. A small deletion in the ompT region of the plasmid greatly diminishes the amount of OmpT protein and plasmid-encoded protease present in outer membranes. Use of ompT deletion strains for production of T7 RNA polymerase from the cloned gene has made purification of intact T7 RNA polymerase routine. Such strains may be useful for purification of other proteins expressed in E. coli.     

用表达T7RNA聚合酶细胞系拯救麻疹病毒微复制子

构建稳定表达T7RNA聚合酶的细胞系,用于提高拯救麻疹病毒微复制子效率.PCR扩增T7RNA聚合酶基因,克隆到真核表达载体,转染Vero细胞,用G418筛选到稳定表达的细胞株Vero/pcDNA3-T7.用Westernblotting证明了T7RNA聚合酶在细胞中的表达.将T7启动子控制绿色荧光蛋白表达的质粒转染该细胞后,绿色荧光蛋白在细胞株中得到表达.反向插入报告基因的微复制子转染感染麻疹病毒的Vero/pcDNA3-T7细胞后,细胞中能够检测到报告基因的表达.用细胞系取代痘苗病毒系统,可以提高拯救效率.     

Rescue of measles viruses from cloned DNA.

A system has been established allowing the rescue of replicating measles viruses (MVs) from cloned DNA. On one hand, plasmids were constructed from which MV antigenomic RNAs with the correct termini are transcribed by phage T7 RNA polymerase. On the other hand, helper cells derived from the human embryonic kidney 293 cell line were generated constitutively expressing T7 RNA polymerase together with MV nucleocapsid protein and phosphoprotein. Simultaneous transfection of the helper cells with the MV antigenomic plasmid and with a plasmid encoding the MV polymerase under direction of a T7 promoter led to formation of syncytia from which MVs were easily recovered. A genetic tag comprising three nucleotide changes was present in the progeny virus. As a first application of reverse genetics, a segment of 504 nucleotides from the 5' non-coding region of the fusion gene was deleted, leading to an MV variant whose replication behaviour in Vero cells was indistinguishable from that of the laboratory Edmonston B strain. Since no helper virus is involved, this system, in principle, should be applicable to the rescue of any member of the large virus order Mononegavirales, i.e. viruses with a nonsegmented negative-strand RNA genome.     

Expression in Escherichia coli of the major outer capsid protein of infectious pancreatic necrosis virus

The gene for Escherichia coli translational initiation factor 3 (infC) has been inserted into an overexpression plasmid under the control of the bacteriophage T7 promoter. The infC plasmid was then used to transform a host with a chromosomal T7 RNA polymerase gene controlled by the lacUVS promoter. Induction of T7 RNA polymerase expression in the host cells resulted in a 200-fold overexpression of infC mRNA and a 100-fold overproduction of initiation factor 3. Rapid batch purification of biologically active IF3 yielded predominantly the long form of IF3, implying that the short form is an artifact of purification by traditional methods.     

Effect of ethanol and low-temperature culture on expression of soybean lipoxygenase L-1 in Escherichia coli.

We have constructed a full-length cDNA that encodes soybean seed lipoxygenase L-1 and have expressed it in Escherichia coli. This gene was inserted into a pT7-7 expression vector, containing the T7 RNA polymerase promoter. E. coli, strain BL21 (DE3), which carries the T7 promoter in its genome, was transfected with the plasmid. Expression of this gene when the cells were cultured at 37 degrees C yielded polypeptide that was recognized by anti-L-1 antibody, but had very little lipoxygenase activity. Yields of active enzyme were markedly increased when cells were cultured at 15-20 degrees C. When ethanol, which has been reported to be an excellent elicitor of heat-shock proteins in E. coli, was also present at a level of 3% the yield was further increased by 40%. Under optimum conditions 22-30 mg of soluble active enzyme was obtained per liter of culture.     

Creation of a T7 autogene. Cloning and expression of the gene for bacteriophage T7 RNA polymerase under control of its cognate promoter

The coding sequence for bacteriophage T7 RNA polymerase has been cloned and expressed under control of a cognate T7 promoter, a configuration referred to as an autogene. Cloning a T7 autogene in a derivative of plasmid pBR322 in Escherichia coli was achieved by a combination of blocking initiation at the T7 promoter with bound lac repressor and inhibiting the polymerase itself by T7 lysozyme. Neither type of inhibition by itself was sufficient to control the autogene. Upon unblocking the T7 promoter with added inducer. T7 RNA polymerase produced its own mRNA, leading to autocatalytic production of polymerase protein. T7 autogenes may be useful for developing high-level gene expression systems in a variety of cell types, with little if any need for the host cell RNA polymerase.     

A General Mechanism for Viral Resistance to Suicide Gene Expression

Bacteriophage T7 was challenged with either of two toxic genes expressed from plasmids. Each plasmid contained a different gene downstream of a T7 promoter; cells harboring each plasmid caused an infection by wild-type T7 to abort. T7 evolved resistance to both inhibitors by avoidance of the plasmid expression system rather than by blocking or bypassing the effects of the specific toxic gene product. Resistance was due to a combination of mutations in the T7 RNA polymerase and other genes expressed at the same time as the polymerase. Mutations mapped to sites that are unlikely to alter polymerase specificity for its cognate promoter but the basis for discrimination between phage and plasmid promoters in vivo was not resolved. A reporter assay indicated that, relative to wild-type phage, gene expression from the plasmid was diminished several-fold in cells infected by the evolved phages. A recombinant phage, derived from the original mutant but lacking a mutation in the gene for RNA polymerase, exhibited intermediate activity in the reporter assay and intermediate resistance to the toxic gene cassettes. Alterations in both RNA polymerase and a second gene are thus responsible for resistance. These findings have broad evolutionary parallels to other systems in which viral inhibition is activated by viral regulatory signals such as defective-interfering particles, and they may have mechanistic parallels to the general phenomena of position effects and gene silencing. Received: 18 July 2000 / Accepted: 8 February 2001     

Identification of a region of the bacteriophage T3 and T7 RNA polymerases that determines promoter specificity

Bacteriophages T7 and T3 encode DNA-dependent RNA polymerases that are 82% homologous, yet exhibit a high degree of specificity for their own promoters. A region of the RNA polymerase gene (gene 1) that is responsible for this specificity has been localized using two approaches. First, the RNA polymerase genes of recombinant T7 x T3 phage that had been generated in other laboratories in studies of phage polymerase specificity were characterized by restriction enzyme mapping. This approach localized the region that determines promoter specificity to the 3' end of the polymerase gene, corresponding to the carboxyl end of the polymerase protein distal to amino acid 623. To define more closely the region of promoter specificity, a series of hybrid T7/T3 RNA polymerase genes was constructed by in vitro manipulation of the cloned genes. The specificity of the resulting hybrid RNA polymerases in vitro and in vivo indicates that an interval of the polymerase that spans amino acids 674 to 752 (the 674 to 752 interval) contains the primary determinant of promoter preference. Within this interval, the amino acid sequences of the T3 and T7 enzymes differ at only 11 out of 79 positions. It has been shown elsewhere that specific recognition of T3 and T7 promoters depends largely upon base-pairs in the region from -10 to -12. An analysis of the preference of the hybrid RNA polymerases for synthetic T7 promoter mutants indicates that the 674 to 752 interval is involved in identifying this region of the promoter, and suggests that another domain of the polymerase (which has not yet been identified) may be involved in identifying other positions where the two consensus promoter sequences differ (most notably at position -15).     

Human cell lines expressing hormone regulated T7 RNA polymerase localized at distinct intranuclear sites

Although several systems are now available for the controlled expression of eukaryotic genes transcribed by RNA polymerase II, regulated expression has been more difficult to achieve in the case of genes transcribed by RNA polymerase III. In the present study the gene for bacteriophage T7 RNA polymerase, implanted with a eukaryotic nuclear localization signal, was linked to a 5'-flanking ecdysone-responsive promoter and stably transformed human cell lines were constructed in which the ecdysone promoter-T7 RNA polymerase gene had been integrated intact, as demonstrated by a polymerase chain reaction assay. Exposure of these cells to the ecdysone analog ponasterone A resulted in the appearance of a single protein having the expected size of T7 RNA polymerase in immunoblots of cell extracts probed with an affinity purified antibody raised against the C-terminus of T7 RNA polymerase. The induced T7 RNA polymerase was exclusively localized in the nucleus of induced cells and was undetectable in uninduced cells either by immunoblotting or immunofluorescence. The induced T7 RNA polymerase was present at numerous punctate foci dispersed throughout the nucleoplasmic regions of the nucleus and was also present in the nucleoli. Both of these observed intranuclear localizations have relevance to the potential applications of this system.