Production Of Foreign Proteins Research Articles

Co-amplification of EBNA-1 and PyLT through dhfr-mediated gene amplification for improving foreign protein production in transient gene expression in CHO cells.

Despite the relatively low transfection efficiency and low specific foreign protein productivity (qp) of Chinese hamster ovary (CHO) cell-based transient gene expression (TGE) systems, TGE-based recombinant protein production technology predominantly employs CHO cells for pre-clinical research and development purposes. To improve TGE in CHO cells, Epstein-Barr virus nuclear antigen-1 (EBNA-1)/polyoma virus large T antigen (PyLT)-co-amplified recombinant CHO (rCHO) cells stably expressing EBNA-1 and PyLT were established using dihydrofolate reductase/methotrexate-mediated gene amplification. The level of transiently expressed Fc-fusion protein was significantly higher in the EBNA-1/PyLT-co-amplified pools compared to control cultures. Increased Fc-fusion protein production by EBNA-1/PyLT-co-amplification resulted from a higher qp attributable to EBNA-1 but not PyLT expression. The qp for TGE-based production with EBNA-1/PyLT-co-amplified rCHO cells (EP-amp-20) was approximately 22.9-fold that of the control culture with CHO-DG44 cells. Rather than improved transfection efficiency, this cell line demonstrated increased levels of mRNA expression and replicated DNA, contributing to an increased qp. Furthermore, there was no significant difference in N-glycan profiles in Fc-fusion proteins produced in the TGE system. Taken together, these results showed that the use of rCHO cells with co-amplified expression of the viral elements EBNA-1 and PyLT improves TGE-based therapeutic protein production dramatically. Therefore, EBNA-1/PyLT-co-amplified rCHO cells will likely be useful as host cells in CHO cell-based TGE systems.

Systems biotechnology for protein production in Pichia pastoris.

The methylotrophic yeast Pichia pastoris (syn. Komagataella spp.) is one of the most important production systems for heterologous proteins. After the first genome sequences were published in 2009, tremendous effort was made to establish systems-level analytical methods. Methylotrophic lifestyle was one of the most thoroughly investigated topics, studied at the levels of transcriptome, proteome and metabolic flux. Also the responses of P. pastoris to environmental stress conditions experienced during high cell density production processes were studied. Metabolomics and flux analysis revealed the plasticity of the cellular metabolism in its adaption to the production of foreign proteins and served as blueprints for subsequent cell engineering and/or process design. The transcriptional response elicited by overexpression of heterologous proteins seems to depend on the nature and complexity of the recombinant product. Based on these data, novel targets for strain engineering could be deduced from transcriptomics and proteomics data mining and effectively enhanced protein secretion. Transcriptional regulation data also served as a valuable resource to identify novel promoters with the desired regulatory characteristics. This review aims to provide a comprehensive overview of systems biology applications in P. pastoris ranging from increased understanding of cell physiology to improving recombinant protein production in this cell factory.

The Use of a Tobacco mosaic virus-Based Expression Vector System in Chrysanthemum.

Chrysanthemums (Chrysanthemum morifolium) are susceptible to tobacco mosaic virus (TMV). TMV-based expression vectors have been used in high-throughput experiments for production of foreign protein in plants and also expressing green fluorescent protein (GFP) to allow visualization of TMV movement. Here, we used TMV expressing the GFP to examine the infection of chrysanthemum by a TMV-based expression vector. Viral replication, movement and GFP expression by TMV-GFP were verified in upper leaves of chrysanthemums up to 73 days post inoculation (dpi) by RT-PCR. Neither wild-type TMV nor TMV-GFP induced symptoms. GFP fluorescence was seen in the larger veins of the inoculated leaf, in the stem above the inoculation site and in petioles of upper leaves, although there was no consistent detection of GFP fluorescence in the lamina of upper leaves under UV. Thus, a TMV-based expression vector can infect chrysanthemum and can be used for the in vivo study of gene functions.

Adoption of the 2A Ribosomal Skip Principle to Tobacco Mosaic Virus for Peptide Display.

Plant viruses are suitable as building blocks for nanomaterials and nanoparticles because they are easy to modify and can be expressed and purified using plants or heterologous expression systems. Plant virus nanoparticles have been utilized for epitope presentation in vaccines, for drug delivery, as nanospheres and nanowires, and for biomedical imaging applications. Fluorescent protein fusions have been instrumental for the tagging of plant virus particles. The monomeric non-oxygen-dependent fluorescent protein iLOV can be used as an alternative to green fluorescent protein. In this study, the iLOV sequence was genetically fused either directly or via a glycine-serine linker to the C-terminus of the Tobacco mosaic virus (TMV) coat protein (CP) and also carried an N-terminal Foot-and-mouth disease virus (FMDV) 2A sequence. Nicotiana benthamiana plants were inoculated with recombinant viral vectors and a systemic infection was achieved. The presence of iLOV fusion proteins and hybrid particles was confirmed by western blot analysis and transmission electron microscopy. Our data suggest that TMV-based vectors are suitable for the production of proteins at least as large as iLOV when combined with the FMDV 2A sequence. This approach allowed the simultaneous production of foreign proteins fused to the CP as well as free CP subunits.

Investigation of relationship between EBNA-1 expression level and specific foreign protein productivity in transient gene expression of HEK293 cells

Abstract In an attempt to determine the relationship between the Epstein–Barr virus nuclear antigen-1 (EBNA-1) expression level and specific foreign protein productivity (qp), EBNA-1-amplifed HEK293 cells, which achieved a higher EBNA-1 expression level than that achieved by HEK293E cells, were established using dihydrofolate reductase (dhfr)-mediated gene amplification. Compared with a control culture in a null pool, Fc-fusion protein production by transient transfection in the EBNA-1-amplified pool showed a significant improvement. qp was linearly correlated with the EBNA-1 expression level in the transient transfection of EBNA-1-amplified clones, as indicated by the correlation coefficient (R2 = 0.7407). The Fc-fusion protein production and qp in a transient gene expression-based culture with EBNA-1-amplified HEK293 cells, E-amp-68, were approximately 2.0 and 3.2 times, respectively, higher than those in a culture with HEK293E cells. The increase in qp by EBNA-1 amplification mainly resulted from an enhancement in the amount of replicated DNA and level of mRNA expression but not an improved transfection efficiency. Taken together, it was found that EBNA-1 amplification could improve the therapeutic protein production in an HEK293 cell-based transient gene expression system.

Production of functional human nerve growth factor from the saliva of transgenic mice by using salivary glands as bioreactors

The salivary glands of animals have great potential to act as powerful bioreactors to produce human therapeutic proteins. Human nerve growth factor (hNGF) is an important pharmaceutical protein that is clinically effective in the treatment of many human neuronal and non-neuronal diseases. In this study, we generated 18 transgenic (TG) founder mice each carrying a salivary gland specific promoter-driven hNGF transgene. A TG mouse line secreting high levels of hNGF protein in its saliva (1.36 μg/mL) was selected. hNGF protein was successfully purified from the saliva of these TG mice and its identity was verified. The purified hNGF was highly functional as it displayed the ability to induce neuronal differentiation of PC12 cells. Furthermore, it strongly promoted proliferation of TF1 cells, above the levels observed with mouse NGF. Additionally, saliva collected from TG mice and containing unpurified hNGF was able to significantly enhance the growth of TF1 cells. This study not only provides a new and efficient approach for the synthesis of therapeutic hNGF but also supports the concept that salivary gland from TG animals is an efficient system for production of valuable foreign proteins.

Robust Transgene Expression from Bicistronic mRNA in the Green Alga Chlamydomonas reinhardtii.

The unicellular green alga Chlamydomonas reinhardtii is a model organism that provides an opportunity to understand the evolution and functional biology of the lineage that includes the land plants, as well as aspects of the fundamental core biology conserved throughout the eukaryotic phylogeny. Although many tools are available to facilitate genetic, molecular biological, biochemical, and cell biological studies in Chlamydomonas, expression of unselected transgenes of interest (GOIs) has been challenging. In most methods used previously, the GOI and a selectable marker are expressed from two separate mRNAs, so that their concomitant expression is not guaranteed. In this study, we developed constructs that allow expression of an upstream GOI and downstream selectable marker from a single bicistronic mRNA. Although this approach in other systems has typically required a translation-enhancing element such as an internal ribosome entry site for the downstream marker, we found that a short stretch of unstructured junction sequence was sufficient to obtain adequate expression of the downstream gene, presumably through post-termination reinitiation. With this system, we obtained robust expression of both endogenous and heterologous GOIs, including fluorescent proteins and tagged fusion proteins, in the vast majority of transformants, thus eliminating the need for tedious secondary screening for GOI-expressing transformants. This improved efficiency should greatly facilitate a variety of genetic and cell-biological studies in Chlamydomonas and also enable new applications such as expression-based screens and large-scale production of foreign proteins.

Large-scale production of foreign proteins via the novel plant transient expression system in Pisum sativum L.

Transient expression of foreign genes by Agrobacterium infiltration is a versatile technique that can be used as a rapid tool for functional protein production in plants. A reproducible protocol of large-scale production of foreign proteins via the novel plant transient expression system in Pisum sativum L. was established in our study. Non-detached plants from soil-independent culture were used as the target organ, and vacuum infiltrating mediated by Agrobacterium tumefaciens harboring green fluorescent protein (GFP) gene was performed. Step-by-step optimization was performed and showed that the quality of plant material as well as agro-infiltration conditions were the major factors influencing the gene expression. Monitoring the transient GFP expression daily, the highest expression level was achieved on the 8th day post-infiltration. Evidence of anti-acidic fibroblast growth factor-single chain variable fragment (anti-aFGF-scFv) gene expression in pea seedling was also achieved using agro-mediated vacuum infiltration system. Our work proves that the system is suitable for the largescale production of pharmaceutical proteins. The in planta infiltration system described here provides a powerful tool to explore easily gene expression in Pisum sativum L. avoiding tissue culture steps and the labor-intensive generation of transgenic plants.

Efficient expression of nuclear transgenes in the green alga Chlamydomonas: synthesis of an HIV antigen and development of a new selectable marker.

The unicellular green alga Chlamydomonas reinhardtii has become an invaluable model system in plant biology. There is also considerable interest in developing this microalga into an efficient production platform for biofuels, pharmaceuticals, green chemicals and industrial enzymes. However, the production of foreign proteins in the nucleocytosolic compartment of Chlamydomonas is greatly hampered by the inefficiency of transgene expression from the nuclear genome. We have recently addressed this limitation by isolating mutant algal strains that permit high-level transgene expression and by determining the contributions of GC content and codon usage to gene expression efficiency. Here we have applied these new tools and explored the potential of Chlamydomonas to produce a recombinant biopharmaceutical, the HIV antigen P24. We show that a codon-optimized P24 gene variant introduced into our algal expression strains give rise to recombinant protein accumulation levels of up to 0.25 % of the total cellular protein. Moreover, in combination with an expression strain, a resynthesized nptII gene becomes a highly efficient selectable marker gene that facilitates the selection of transgenic algal clones at high frequency. By establishing simple principles of successful transgene expression, our data open up new possibilities for biotechnological research in Chlamydomonas.

Alternative Eukaryotic Expression Systems for the Production of Proteins and Protein Complexes.

Besides the most established expression hosts, several eukaryotic microorganisms and filamentous fungi have also been successfully used as platforms for the production of foreign proteins. Filamentous fungi and Dictyostelium discoideum are two prominent examples. Filamentous fungi, typically Aspergillus and Trichoderma, are usually employed for the industrial production of enzymes and secondary metabolites for food processing, pharmaceutical drugs production, and textile and paper applications, with multiple products already accepted for their commercialization. The low cost of culture medium components, high secretion capability directly to the extracellular medium, and the intrinsic ability to produce post-translational modifications similar to the mammalian type, have promoted this group as successful hosts for the expression of proteins, including examples from phylogenetically distant groups: humans proteins such as IL-2, IL-6 or epithelial growth factor; α-galactosidase from plants; or endoglucanase from Cellulomonas fimi, among others. D. discoideum is a social amoeba that can be used as an expression platform for a variety of proteins, which has been extensively illustrated for cytoskeletal proteins. New vectors for heterologous expression in D. discoideum have been recently developed that might increase the usefulness of this system and expand the range of protein classes that can be tackled. Continuous developments are ongoing to improve strains, promoters, production and downstream processes for filamentous fungi, D. discoideum, and other alternative eukaryotic hosts. Either for the overexpression of individual genes, or in the coexpression of multiples genes, this chapter illustrates the enormous possibilities offered by these groups of eukaryotic organisms.

Expression of egfp gene based on Agrobacterium tumefaciens-mediated transformation in Beauveria bassiana sensu lato ERL836

In the present study, an enhanced green fluorescent protein gene (egfp) was expressed in Beauveria bassiana ERL836 based on the Agrobacterium tumefaciens-mediated transformation (AtMT) method. The ERL836 transformants were generated with pCambia-egfp binary vectors. Ten transformants were randomly selected and analyzed for the T-DNA insertion and gene expression. The results revealed that 60% (egfp) of the fungal putative transformants were inserted by the T-DNA fragment. The expressions of egfp in putative transformants were rapidly detected by reverse transcription PCR (RT-PCR) method. Among these transformants, 33.33% (egfp, 2 transformants) expressed the target genes. Two selected egfp transformants showed strong green fluorescence with different expression levels. The results of this study could provide a successful procedure for foreign protein production in B. bassiana by using the AtMT method and accomplished with a rapid selection of fungal transformants using RT-PCR.

Post-harvest light treatment increases expression levels of recombinant proteins in transformed plastids of potato tubers.

Plastid genetic engineering represents an attractive system for the production of foreign proteins in plants. Although high expression levels can be achieved in leaf chloroplasts, the results for non-photosynthetic plastids are generally discouraging. Here, we report the expression of two thioredoxin genes (trx f and trx m) from the potato plastid genome to study transgene expression in amyloplasts. As expected, the highest transgene expression was detected in the leaf (up to 4.2% of TSP). The Trx protein content in the tuber was approximately two to three orders of magnitude lower than in the leaf. However, we demonstrate that a simple post-harvest light treatment of microtubers developed in vitro or soil-grown tubers induces up to 55 times higher accumulation of the recombinant protein in just seven to ten days. After the applied treatment, the Trx f levels in microtubers and soil-grown tubers increased to 0.14% and 0.11% of TSP, respectively. Moreover, tubers stored for eight months maintained the capacity of increasing the foreign protein levels after the light treatment. Post-harvest cold induction (up to five times) at 4°C was also detected in microtubers. We conclude that plastid transformation and post-harvest light treatment could be an interesting approach for the production of foreign proteins in potato.

형질전환 벼 현탁세포 배양에서 hGM-CSF의 in situ Recovery 연구

Production of foreign proteins by transgenic plant cell cultures has several advantages such as post-translational modification, low risk of product contamination and low-cost production and purification. However, target proteins are degraded by extracellular proteases existing in the media. A solution to this problem is the use of perfusion culture and ion exchange chromatography for the application of integrated bioprocess using in situ recovery. With this method, production of human granulocyte-macrophage colony-stimulating factor (hGM-CSF) was investigated in this study. First, optimization of cell concentration during the induction phase for the production of hGM-CSF was examined. As cell concentration increased, the level of hGM-CSF was decreased due to the presence of extracellular proteases. Induction using sugarfree media produced 33% more hGM-CSF. The effects of pH on the binding of hGM-CSF to cationic and anionic exchange resins were also investigated. In terms of stability, optimal pH was found to be 5~7. In the case of using buffer exchange when CM-Sepharose was used as a cationic exchange resin, optimal pH for binding was 4.8 and adsorption yield was 77%. When DEAE-Sepharose was used as an anionic exchange resin, it was 5.5 (74%). Without buffer exchange, optimal pH was 4.6 (84%). From these results, an integrated bioprocess using in situ recovery with simultaneous production and separation of foreign protein in transgenic plant cell suspension cultures was found to be feasible.

Rapid transient expression of human granulocyte-macrophage colony-stimulating factor in two industrial cultivars of tobacco (Nicotiana tabacum L.) by agroinfiltration

We report the production of hGM-CSF cytokine in leaves of industrial tobacco cultivars DH-17 and DH-27 by using Agrobacterium-mediated transient expression. We prove the concept that very high biomass industrial tobacco plants are suitable platforms for rapid, low cost production of foreign proteins. Successful transient expression of the GM-CSF was achieved in less than three months, opening the possibility for future applications of this approach in rapid response production of various proteins of non-plant origin in industrial tobacco.

Escherichia coli auxotroph host strains for amino acid-selective isotope labeling of recombinant proteins.

Enrichment of proteins with isotopes such as (2)H, (15)N, and (13)C is commonly carried out in magnetic resonance and vibrational spectroscopic characterization of protein structures, mechanisms, and dynamics. Although uniform isotopic labeling of proteins is straightforward, efficient labeling of proteins with only a selected set of amino acid types is often challenging. A number of approaches have been described in the literature for amino acid-selective isotope labeling of proteins, each with its own limitations. Since Escherichia coli represents the most cost-effective and widely used host for heterologous production of foreign proteins, an efficient method to express proteins selectively labeled with isotopes would be highly valuable for these studies. However, an obvious drawback is misincorporation and dilution of input isotope labels to unwanted amino acid types due to metabolic scrambling in vivo. To overcome this problem, we have generated E. coli auxotroph strains that are compatible with the widely used T7 RNA polymerase overexpression systems and that minimize metabolic scrambling. We present several examples of selective amino acid isotope labeling of simple and complex proteins with bound cofactors, as an initial guide for practical applications of these E. coli strains.

Engineering glycolysis branch pathways of Escherichia coli to improve heterologous protein expression

Escherichia coli expression systems are still preferred to other bacterial expression systems. However, by-product formation via glycolytic pathways inhibits protein production efficiency. In this paper, by-product-forming pathways were engineered to evaluate their effect on foreign protein production. Elimination of d-lactate dehydrogenase (encoded by ldhA) resulted in enhanced cell performance and 17.8% increase in recombinant β-mannanase production. Single deletions of pflB (encoding pyruvate formate lyase), pps (encoding phoenolpyruvate synthase) or poxB (encoding pyruvate oxidase) also had an affirmative impact on recombinant protein production. Furthermore, simultaneous deletions of ldhA, pflB, pps and poxB increased cell mass by 29% and β-mannanase production by 56% under shake-flasks cultivation. Meanwhile, overall acetate concentration showed a decrease of 33%. This quadruple mutant showed the best performance under bioreactor process, in which volume and specific activity of β-mannanase increased by 1.9 and 1.46 fold compared to the control strain respectively. The approach shown here indicated that rational engineering of glycolytic pathways can efficiently improve foreign protein production in E. coli.

Screening of plant cell culture collection for efficient host species for Agrobacterium-mediated transient expression

Agrobacterium-mediated transient expression is an approach for short-time expression of heterologous genes in plant systems. During the last decade transient expression was regarded as a potent protocol for high scale production of foreign proteins in plants including pharmaceutically valuable proteins. In vitro grown plant cell cultures represent a suitable system for accumulation of heterologous proteins under controlled conditions. Since host characteristics may strongly influence transient expression efficiency, we performed screening of undifferentiated cell cultures for transient expression ability using GUS as a reporter. Analysis of 248 plant species belonging to 49 families from the National Germplasm Bank of the World Flora of the Institute of Cell Biology and Genetic Engineering (Kyiv, Ukraine) allowed for selection of about 50 plant species exhibiting detectable beta-glucuronidase activity.

The use of legume seed for expression and storage of high value proteins

There is an ever growing need for the use of recombinant proteins both in medicine and industry; however their widespread use is limited by the lack of production capacity. Transgenic plants offer the possibility to produce and deliver recombinant proteins on a large scale with low production costs and with minimal purification or enrichment requirements. Among crop plants, legumes have great potential as a protein production platform because of their naturally high protein content, nutritional value, independence of N-nutrition, pollen containment, available processing technology, storage stability etc. There have been several proof-of-principle attempts to produce large amounts of recombinant protein in seed of both soybean and pea, however, our knowledge of processes regulating the foreign protein production and deposition is still limited.

The modified rice αAmy8 promoter confers high-level foreign gene expression in a novel hypoxia-inducible expression system in transgenic rice seedlings

Expression of α-amylase genes in rice is induced not only by sugar starvation and gibberellin (GA) but also by O2 deficiency. Promoters of two rice α-amylase genes, αAmy3 and αAmy8, have been shown to direct high-level production of recombinant proteins in rice suspension cells and germinated seeds. In the present study, we modified the cis-acting DNA elements within the sugar/GA response complex (SRC/GARC) of αAmy8 promoter. We found that addition of a G box and duplicated TA box leads to high-level expression of αAmy8 SRC/GARC and significantly enhances αAmy8 promoter activity in transformed rice cells and germinated transgenic rice seeds. We also show that these modifications have drastically increased the activity of αAmy8 promoter in rice seedlings under hypoxia. Our results reveal that the G box and duplicated TA box may play important roles in stimulating promoter activity in response to hypoxia in rice. The modified αAmy8 promoter was used to produce the recombinant human epidermal growth factor (hEGF) in rice cells and hypoxic seedlings. We found that the bioactive recombinant hEGF are stably produced and yields are up to 1.8% of total soluble protein (TSP) in transformed rice cells. The expression level of synthetic hEGF containing preferred rice codon usage comprises up to 7.8% of TSP in hypoxic transgenic seedlings. Our studies reveal that the modified αAmy8 promoter can be applicable in establishing a novel expression system for the high-level production of foreign proteins in transgenic rice cells and seedlings under hypoxia.

Enhanced glycosyl hydrolase production in Aspergillus nidulans using transcription factor engineering approaches

Background: Engineered fungi are attractive platforms for the production of plant cell wall hydrolytic enzymes which, among other biotechnological applications, are required for the efficient conversion of biomass to glucose and other fermentable sugars. As a fungal model system, Aspergillus nidulans provides genetic tools that are of relevance in this context and potentially applicable to industrially important filamentous fungi. The goal of this study is to assess the utility of A. nidulans as a host for recombinant protein production. Results: We have successfully applied a transcription factor engineering approach to improve the efficiency of the A. nidulans xylanolytic XlnR-xlnp expression system. Specifically, endo-1,4-β-xylanases and an α-L-rhamnosidase were chosen as representatives of endogenous and heterologous glycosyl hydrolases involved in plant cell wall deconstruction. By deregulating the expression of the xylanolytic transcriptional activator XlnR and modulating the activity of the pH regulator PacC we improved protein production and reduced production times. Xylanase activity was about 200-fold greater in gpdAp::xlnR strains compared to controls 4 hours after transfer to inducing conditions, and 10-fold greater after 24 hours. Remarkably, 75% of the xylanase activity was present in the engineered strains within 4 hours. Engineering XlnR expression also had a considerable impact on foreign protein production, especially when the promoter of the 'acidic' xlnB gene was used to express the transgene. α-L-rhamnosidase activity in xlnBp::rhaA, gpdAp::xlnR strains was about 19-fold greater than that of controls 72 hours after transfer to xylan (about 85% of the total activity produced), and 10-fold greater at later times (120 hours). The performance of these strains was further enhanced by impeding the proteolytic activation of PacC; introduction of the palA1 allele in xlnBp::rhaA, gpdAp::xlnR strains resulted in an additional 2.7-fold increase in α-L-rhamnosidase activity by 48 hours (about 87% of the total activity produced) and a 1.7-fold increase at later times. Conclusions: Our results show that the XlnR-xlnp expression system is a valuable tool for manipulating the production of plant cell wall degrading enzymes in A. nidulans and establish the biotechnological potential of the transcription factors XlnR and PacC to boost and control the strength of xylanolytic promoters.