pBV220载体中外源基因表达水平定量分析

运用基于螺旋区随机堆积的ＲＮＡ二级结构预测与密码子偏性计算等序列分析技术,分析了ｐＢＶ２２０载体中携带的人白细胞介素２、人白细胞介素４等２２个外源基因的表达水平,结果表明：５‘－３０－３９区域和３’端３０－－３９区域的二级结构有与表达水平具有显的统计学意义;其次是３端９ｂｐ的局部密码子偏性,ＳＤ序列与起始密友子ＡＴＧ之间碱基数在８±３范围内与表达水平无显关系。另外,运用判别分析方法构建了判别函     

核基质结合区的位置对转基因表达的影响

为研究核基质结合区 (MAR）序列不同插入位置对转基因表达作用的影响,PCR扩增人β 珠蛋白MAR分别插入到含氯霉素乙酰转移酶（chloramphenicol acetyltransferase,CAT）报告基因真核表达载体pCATG表达盒两侧、5′端及3′端.酶切鉴定后,用阳离子聚合物转染CHO细胞,G418筛选出阳性细胞克隆,ELISA分析CAT基因的表达水平,半定量PCR分析CAT基因相对拷贝数.结果表明,表达盒两侧含MAR序列的载体能提高介导的转基因表达水平平均提高10.4倍,5′端含MAR序列的载体表达水平平均提高3.9倍,3′端含MAR序列的载体反而降低转基因表达水平.5′端含MAR序列的表达载体其转基因相对拷贝数高于其它两组载体的基因拷贝数,转基因表达量与基因拷贝数不成正比.     

mRNA翻译起始区二级结构改变对干扰素基因在大肠杆菌中翻译的影响

为研究mRNA翻译起始区结构与基因表达的关系,利用密码子的简并性,在不改变表达产物氨基酸序列的前提下定点突变α8干扰素及αA干扰素衍生物基因的5′端若干位点,使其与表达载体重组后转录形成的mRNA翻译起始区结构发生改变。SDS-PAGE及活性测定证实这些改变提高了外源基因的表达水平。RNA斑点印迹表明突变前后基因转录水平差别不大,表达水平的提高主要由于翻译效率的提高。mRNA翻译起始区二级结构预测提示其生成自由能(ΔG)的变化可能与表达水平的提高有关。     

人白细胞介素－3基因翻译起始区的改造提高其在大肠杆菌中的表达水平

为了提高人白细胞介素－3(bhIL-3)在大肠杆菌中的表达,在计算机辅助下,设计合成了PCR突变引物,用于改造起始密码AUG上下游序列,并在不改变5’端氨基酸编码的前提下,尽可能选用大肠杆菌高频使用的密码子。将经改造后的Hil-3cDNA和翻译起始区置于PL启动子之下,转入大肠杆菌Tapl06,经42℃热诱导后．获得表达产物,提高表达水平近一倍,表达量达到菌体总蛋白量的30％左右。表达产物经Western blot验证,经PVDF膜转移后进行N端顺序分析,证明前15个氨基酸正确,产物经包涵体纯化后,纯度提高至80％以上,初步复性后能明显促进Hil－3依赖细胞的生长。     

人αD型干扰素cDNA 3′端非编码序列对该基因在大肠杆菌中表达的影响

本文采用DNA体外重组技术,研究了人αD型干扰素cDNA 3′端非编码序列对该基因在大肠杆菌中表达的影响。发现3′端非编码序列的缺失,使得人αD型干扰素基因在大肠杆菌中的表达水平降低约87倍。这一结果提示,在进行人αD型干扰素cDNA在大肠杆菌中的表达设计时,有必要保留其3′端非编码序列。     

乙肝病毒DNA疫苗的构建及其诱导小鼠的免疫应答

构建含adr亚型HBV表面抗原基因的核酸疫苗 ,考察人白细胞介素II基因及重组白细胞介素II的免疫佐剂作用。用含有人白细胞介素II基因的真核表达质粒及基因重组白细胞介素II蛋白作为佐剂 ,将编码乙型肝炎病毒表面抗原的重组真核表达质粒 pVAX/HBS免疫BALB/C小鼠 (试验组 ) ,同时设置注射质粒pVAX的阴性对照组 ,并分别于第 2 ,4周后加强免疫各 1次。试验组在第 4周时开始有HBsAb产生 ,阴性对照组未测到HbsAb ,试验组和对照组均未检测到HBsAg。乙肝病毒DNA疫苗能引起小鼠特异性体液免疫应答 ,白细胞介素II的真核表达质粒的佐剂作用不明显 ,基因重组白细胞介素II蛋白具有提高小鼠对乙肝病毒核酸疫苗免疫应答水平的佐剂活性。     

人γ心钠素在大肠杆菌中的高效表达

利用聚合酶链式反应（ＰＣＲ）技术扩增人γ心钠素（γ－ｈＡＮＰ）ｃＤＮＡ编码序列,在其５′和３′端分别引入ＥｃｏＲⅠ和ＢａｍＨⅠ限制性内切酶位点,定向克隆到表达质粒载体ｐＭＳ－３１ｂ,在大肠杆菌ｐｏｐ２１３６中高效表达出人γ心钠素融合蛋白,表达产物占菌体总蛋白的３０～４０％。双向免疫扩散法测定证明表达产物与人α心钠素（α－ｈＡＮＰ）抗血清呈阳性反应,纯化的表达产物经复性处理后能引起大鼠胸主动脉条舒张．     

人白细胞介素－3在大肠杆菌中的高效表达

人白细胞介素－３（ｈｕｍａｎＩｎｔｅｒｌｅｕｋｉｎ３,ｈＩＬ－３）是一种造血前体细胞早期分化的关键调节因子。用ＰＣＲ方法从人Ｔ淋巴细胞ｃＤＮＡ文库中扩增出０．４４ｋｂ的ＤＮＡ片段,并克隆入ｐＵＣ１９载体中。经ＤＮＡ序列测定,确定０．４４ｋｂ的ＰＣＲ产物合完整的编码人白细胞介素－３成熟蛋白ｃＤＮＡ序列,并在信号肽与成熟蛋白编码序列之间通过突变引入了限制性内切酶位点和ＡＴＧ起始密码。构建的ＰＬ启动子控制下的ｈＩＬ－３ｃＤＮＡ表达质粒,转入大肠杆菌Ｔａｐ１０６,经４２℃热诱导,获得ｈＩＬ－３的表达产物。ＳＤＳ－ＰＡＧＥ电泳显示表达产物为１５ｋｄ,约占细菌总蛋白的１５％。表达产物经ＥＬＩＳＡ和Ｗｅｓｔｅｒｎ－ｂｌｏｔ验证。ｈＩＬ－３表达产物在细胞内形成包涵体,纯化包涵体,使产物纯度提高到７０．８％,产物复性后,能明显促进ｈＩＬ－３依赖细胞株生长,具有明显的生物活性。产物转移到ＰＶＤＦ膜后进行Ｎ端序列分析,Ｎ端１６个氨基酸正确。     

油菜叶绿体16SrRNA基因的一级结构分析

本文报道了油菜叶绿体16S rRNA基因的全顺序及其5′端上游的156bp和3′端下游的101bp的核苷酸顺序。油菜叶绿体16s rRNA基因长为1491bp,和烟草、玉米相比,同源程度分别为98.5％、96.1％。油菜叶绿体16S rRNA基因5′端上游及3′端下游的顺序能互补而形成一个较大的茎环结构,但与烟草相比,由于3′端下游顺序有79bp的缺失,因此,该结构中的茎部分大小仅为烟草的二分之一。     

病毒白细胞介素-6在人疱疹病毒8型相关疾病中作用的研究进展

人类疱疹病毒8型与卡波济肉瘤、原发性渗出性淋巴瘤、多中心性Castleman病相关。由该病毒的K2基因编码的病毒白细胞介素－6与人白细胞介素－6有24．8％的氨基酸同源性。在该病毒相关疾病组织中,病毒白细胞介素－6基因有不同程度的表达,在原发性渗出性淋巴瘤和多中心Castleman病的B细胞中有高水平的表达,而在卡波济肉瘤的纺锤细胞中只有低水平的表达。功能研究表明病毒白细胞介素－6具有抗凋亡和促进细胞增殖、诱导血管内皮生长因子和人白细胞介素－6产生等作用。     

Dynalign: an algorithm for finding the secondary structure common to two RNA sequences

With the rapid increase in the size of the genome sequence database, computational analysis of RNA will become increasingly important in revealing structure-function relationships and potential drug targets. RNA secondary structure prediction for a single sequence is 73 % accurate on average for a large database of known secondary structures. This level of accuracy provides a good starting point for determining a secondary structure either by comparative sequence analysis or by the interpretation of experimental studies. Dynalign is a new computer algorithm that improves the accuracy of structure prediction by combining free energy minimization and comparative sequence analysis to find a low free energy structure common to two sequences without requiring any sequence identity. It uses a dynamic programming construct suggested by Sankoff. Dynalign, however, restricts the maximum distance, M, allowed between aligned nucleotides in the two sequences. This makes the calculation tractable because the complexity is simplified to O(M(3)N(3)), where N is the length of the shorter sequence.The accuracy of Dynalign was tested with sets of 13 tRNAs, seven 5 S rRNAs, and two R2 3' UTR sequences. On average, Dynalign predicted 86.1 % of known base-pairs in the tRNAs, as compared to 59.7 % for free energy minimization alone. For the 5 S rRNAs, the average accuracy improves from 47.8 % to 86.4 %. The secondary structure of the R2 3' UTR from Drosophila takahashii is poorly predicted by standard free energy minimization. With Dynalign, however, the structure predicted in tandem with the sequence from Drosophila melanogaster nearly matches the structure determined by comparative sequence analysis.     

The translation of recombinant proteins in E. coli can be improved by in silico generating and screening random libraries of a -70/+96 mRNA region with respect to the translation initiation codon

Recombinant protein translation in Escherichia coli may be limited by stable (i.e. low free energy) secondary structures in the mRNA translation initiation region. To circumvent this issue, we have set-up a computer tool called 'ExEnSo' (Expression Enhancer Software) that generates a random library of 8192 sequences, calculates the free energy of secondary structures of each sequence in the -70/+96 region (base 1 is the translation initiation codon), and then selects the sequence having the highest free energy. The software uses this 'optimized' sequence to create a 5' primer that can be used in PCR experiments to amplify the coding sequence of interest prior to sub-cloning into a prokaryotic expression vector. In this article, we report how ExEnSo was set-up and the results obtained with nine coding sequences with low expression levels in E. coli. The free energy of the -70/+96 region of all these coding sequences was increased compared to the non-optimized sequences. Moreover, the protein expression of eight out of nine of these coding sequences was increased in E. coli, indicating a good correlation between in silico and in vivo results. ExEnSo is available as a free online tool.     

High-temperature cultivation and 5' mRNA optimization are key factors for the efficient overexpression of thermostable Deinococcus geothermalis purine nucleoside phosphorylase in Escherichia coli

Overexpression of genes from thermophiles in Escherichia coli is an attractive approach towards the large-scale production of thermostable biocatalysts. However, various factors can challenge efficient heterologous protein expression--one example is the formation of stable 5' mRNA secondary structures that can impede an efficient translation initiation. In this work, we describe the expression optimization of purine nucleoside phosphorylase from the thermophilic microbe Deinococcus geothermalis in E. coli. Poor expression levels caused by stable secondary 5' mRNA structure formation were addressed by two different approaches: (i) increasing the cultivation temperature above the range used typically for recombinant protein expression and (ii) optimizing the 5' mRNA sequence for reduced secondary structures in the translation initiation region. The increase of the cultivation temperature from 30°C to 42°C allowed a more than 10-fold increase of activity per cell and optimizing the 5' mRNA gene sequence further increased the activity per cell 1.7-fold at 42°C. Thus, the combination of high-temperature cultivation and 5' sequence optimization is described as an effective approach to overcome poor expression levels resulting from stable secondary 5' mRNA structure formation. We suggest that this method is especially suitable for improving the expression of proteins derived from thermophiles in E. coli.     

使用估计的反应自由能预测组成性和可变剪接位点

基因结构预测中的一个重要步骤是精确地识别剪接位点。基于剪接反应的基本物理原则,最大信息原理被应用到剪接反应的理论分析中,进而导出了反应自由能估计表达式。作为一个简化模型,这个表达式能被用来估计一个5′剪接区或者3′剪接区所参与的剪接反应中的自由能变化。它不但较全面地概括了各个碱基之间的关联,而且还考虑了基因组背景概率的影响。这个反应自由能表达式被用来预测了人类基因中的组成性和可变剪接位点,预测结果是令人满意的,其预测能力比得上当前的一些流行方法。这说明最大信息原理可以作为研究某些核酸-蛋白质相互作用系统（如剪接反应）的理论出发点,导出的反应自由能表达式较好地符合了剪接反应过程。     

Thermodynamic characterization of single mismatches found in naturally occurring RNA

Many naturally occurring RNA structures contain single mismatches. However, the algorithms currently used to predict RNA structure from sequence rely on a minimal set of data for single mismatches, most of which occur rather infrequently in nature. As a result, several approximations and assumptions are used to predict the stability of RNA duplexes containing the most common single mismatches. Therefore, the relative frequency of single mismatches was determined by compiling and searching a database of 955 RNA secondary structures. Thermodynamic parameters for duplex formation, derived from optical melting experiments, are reported for 28 oligoribonucleotides containing frequently occurring single mismatches. These data were then combined with previous data to construct a dataset of 64 single mismatches, including the 30 most common in the database. Because of this increase in experimental thermodynamic parameters for single mismatches that occur frequently in nature, more accurate free energy calculations have resulted. To improve the prediction of the thermodynamic parameters for duplexes containing single mismatches that have not been experimentally measured, single mismatch-specific nearest neighbor parameters were derived. The free energy of an RNA duplex containing a single mismatch that has not been thermodynamically characterized can be calculated by: DeltaG degrees 37,single mismatch = DeltaG degrees 37,mismatch nt + DeltaG degrees 37,mismatch-NN interaction + DeltaG degrees 37,AU/GU. Here, DeltaG degrees 37,mismatch is -0.4, -2.1, and -0.3 kcal/mol for A.G, G.G, and U.U mismatches, respectively; DeltaG degrees 37,mismatch-NN interaction is 0.7, -0.5, 0.4, -0.4, and -1.0 kcal/mol for 5'YRR3'/3'RRY5', 5'RYY3'/3'YYR5', 5'YYR3'/3'RYY5', 5'YRY3'/3'RYR5', and 5'RRY3'/3'YYR5' mismatch-nearest neighbor combinations, respectively, when A and G are categorized as purines (R) and C and U are categorized as pyrimidines (Y); and DeltaG degrees 37,AU/GU is a penalty of 1.2 kcal/mol for replacing a G-C base pair with either an A-U or G-U base pair. Similar predictive models were also derived for DeltaH degrees single mismatch and DeltaS degrees single mismatch. These new predictive models, in conjunction with the reported thermodynamics for frequently occurring single mismatches, should allow for more accurate calculations of the free energy of RNA duplexes containing single mismatches and, furthermore, allow for improved prediction of secondary structure from sequence.     

Translation through an uncDC mRNA secondary structure governs the level of uncC expression in Escherichia coli.

Escherichia coli expresses the beta and epsilon subunits of F1F0-ATP synthase at relative levels consistent with the 3:1 (beta/epsilon) stoichiometry in the holoenzyme. The mechanism of translational control of expression of the uncC gene (epsilon subunit) relative to the immediately 5' uncD gene (beta subunit) was examined. Previous expression studies and a computer analysis suggested the presence of an RNA secondary structure including the 3' end of uncD, the uncDC intergenic region, and the uncC Shine-Dalgarno sequence (S. D. Dunn and H. G. Dallmann, J. Bacteriol. 172:2782-2784, 1990). Analysis of in vitro-transcribed RNA by cleavage with RNases T1, V1, and CL3 and by chemical modification with dimethyl sulfate and diethyl pyrocarbonate confirmed a predicted structure. Introduction of premature uncD stop codons inserted 5' of the secondary structure strongly reduced epsilon expression, whereas stop codons inserted at positions within the secondary structure showed smaller effects, indicating that translational control of epsilon synthesis involves partial coupling to beta synthesis. Possible mechanisms by which the RNA secondary structure and the unfolding of this structure by translation of uncD may govern the level of uncC expression are discussed.     

Structure of the human M(2) muscarinic acetylcholine receptor gene and its promoter.

The M(2) muscarinic receptor inhibits the release of acetylcholine from cholinergic fibers in the lungs and elsewhere. In airway parasympathetic neurons, M(2) receptor expression is decreased by viral infections and by interferon-gamma, increasing actylcholine release. Dexamethasone increases M(2) receptor expression, decreasing acetylcholine release. We carried out 5' rapid amplification of cDNA ends beginning with mRNA from human heart and IMR32 human neuroblastoma cells. This demonstrated a 5' UTR of 100 BP, corresponding to two sequences on chromosome 7, separated by a 22.6 kB intron. The splice acceptor site is at -45 relative to the initiating atg. The 3000 BP upstream of 5' RACE product were subcloned into a pGL3 luciferase reporter vector. Deletional constructs were expressed in IMR32 cells. These demonstrated that 412 BP provided full expression of the reporter gene, and suggested a repressor element between -1848 and -1510.