Recombinant Heparin-New Opportunities

Heparin and heparan sulfate (HS) are polydisperse mixtures of polysaccharide chains between 5 and 50 kDa. Sulfate modifications to discreet regions along the chains form protein binding sites involved in cell signaling cascades and other important cellular physiological and pathophysiological functions. Specific protein affinities of the chains vary among different tissues and are determined by the arrangements of sulfated residues in discreet regions along the chains which in turn appear to be determined by the expression levels of particular enzymes in the biosynthetic pathway. Although not all the rules governing synthesis and modification are known, analytical procedures have been developed to determine composition, and all of the biosynthetic enzymes have been identified and cloned. Thus, through cell engineering, it is now possible to direct cellular synthesis of heparin and HS to particular compositions and therefore particular functional characteristics. For example, directing heparin producing cells to reduce the level of a particular type of polysaccharide modification may reduce the risk of heparin induced thrombocytopenia (HIT) without reducing the potency of anticoagulation. Similarly, HS has been linked to several biological areas including wound healing, cancer and lipid metabolism among others. Presumably, these roles involve specific HS compositions that could be produced by engineering cells. Providing HS reagents with a range of identified compositions should help accelerate this research and lead to new clinical applications for specific HS compositions. Here I review progress in engineering CHO cells to produce heparin and HS with compositions directed to improved properties and advancing medical research.

Immobilization alters heparin cleaving properties of heparinase I

We report here a novel observation that immobilization of heparinase I on CNBr-activated Sepharose results in heparin degradation properties that are different from heparinase I in the free solution form. Studies over a range of pHs (5-8) and temperatures (5-50°C) as well as under batch and flow conditions show that immobilized heparinase 1 displays altered pH and temperature optima, and a higher propensity for generation of longer chains (hexa- and octa-) with variable sulfation as compared to that in the free form, which is known to yield disaccharides. The immobilized enzyme retained good eliminase activity over at least five cycles of reuse. In combination, results suggest that heparinase I immobilization may offer a more productive route to longer, variably sulfated sequences.

Binding of glycosaminoglycans to cyano-activated agarose membranes: kinetic and diffusional effects on yield and homogeneity

Methods were developed for binding a glycosaminoglycan (GAG, a 50 kDa chondroitin sulfate) to thin agarose membranes using 1-cyano-4-(dimethylamino)pyridinium tetrafluoroborate (CDAP) as the activating agent. Process conditions were optimized to achieve high yields and spatially uniform concentrations of bound ligand. Yields were varied mainly by manipulating the duration and temperature of the aqueous washes prior to coupling, which affected the concentration of active sites available for subsequent GAG binding. The rate constants for degradation of the active cyanate esters in 0.1M bicarbonate solutions were 0.24+/-0.02 h(-1) at 4 degrees C and 0.08+/-0.03 h(-1) at 0 degrees C. Steric limitations in the 3% agarose gels severely restricted binding, with only about 0.1% of active sites being accessible to GAG molecules. The GAG binding occurred primarily in the outer 50-70 microm of the membranes, so that coupling was homogeneous only for thin gels. A model of GAG diffusion and reaction in the coupling step was developed to explain the observed effects of parameters such as the GAG concentration in solution and the membrane thickness. An analysis of the key time scales in the synthesis provides design principles that should be useful also for other cyanylating agents, other ligands, and for beads as well as membranes.

An investigation of heparinase immobilization

A systematic investigation of the parameters that affect the efficiency of immobilizing heparinase onto cyanogen bromide activated crosslinked 8% agarose beads was conducted. Two experimental measures, the "fraction bound" and the "fraction retained," were used to monitor the coupling efficiency. The fraction bound is the portion of the total initial enzyme that is bound to the agarose gel. The fraction retained is the fraction of bound enzyme that is active. The product of the two measures indicates the coupling efficiency. The activity of the immobilized heparinase was measured under conditions free of both internal and external mass transfer limitations, and thus, the fraction retained represents the true immobilized enzyme activity. Increasing the degree of activation of the beads results in an increase in the fraction bound, the fraction retained, and consequently, the coupling efficiency. As the ratio of enzyme solution to gel volume increases from 1.5 to 2.2, the fraction bound remains constant but the fraction retained decreases (heparinase concentration; 0.15 mg/mL and degree of activation; 9.5 mumol of cyanate esters/g of gel). At volume ratios greater than 2.2, both the fraction bound and the fraction retained decline continuously. Changing the heparinase concentration in the coupling solution changes the coupling efficiency in a manner similar to that of the volume ratio change. When heparin is added during the coupling process, the fraction bound declines as the heparin concentration increases, whereas the fraction retained increases up to a heparin concentration of 12 mg/mL and decreases thereafter. When arginine, lysine, and glycine are used to block the unreacted cyanate ester groups after the coupling process, the immobilized heparinase shows different pH optima of 6.5, 6.9, and 7.2, respectively. Based upon these findings, a protocol to optimize heparinase immobilization is developed.