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Yesilcimen A, Callahan AJ, Travaline TL, Gandhesiri S, Tokareva OS, Loas A, McGee JH, Pentelute BL. Rapid Production of Native and Mirror-Image Tumor Necrosis Factor-α Enabled by Automated Flow Peptide Synthesis Technology. J Org Chem 2024; 89:12886-12893. [PMID: 39255342 DOI: 10.1021/acs.joc.4c01866] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 09/12/2024]
Abstract
Tumor necrosis factor-α (TNF-α) plays a central role in immune response regulation. Because elevated TNF-α production is correlated with a range of diseases, inhibiting the interaction of this protein with its native receptors has been thoroughly explored as a therapeutic avenue. Despite advancements in the development of TNF-α inhibitors, concerns remain regarding immunogenicity and loss of activity in vivo. To facilitate the discovery of stable and less immunogenic therapeutic modalities, we applied a single-shot automated fast-flow peptide synthesis (AFPS) strategy to produce full-length TNF-α, resulting in a complex reaction mixture. Leveraging the ability of AFPS to generate long peptides with high purity, we combined this technology with native chemical ligation (NCL). An NCL reaction using two fragments readily produced by AFPS afforded synthetic L- and D-TNF-α in milligram quantities (up to 5.5 mg, ∼28% yield). Following the oxidative folding of synthetic TNF-α using established conditions, higher molecular weight species were generated. Through high-throughput screening of refolding conditions, functional synthetic L- and mirror-image D-TNF-α were obtained, exhibiting characteristics analogous to those of the recombinant TNF-α. Overall, this approach can serve as a general protocol for accessing proteins that are intractable by modern protein synthesis methods, therefore, streamlining the development of novel therapeutics.
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Affiliation(s)
- Ahmet Yesilcimen
- Department of Chemistry, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 77 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02139, United States
| | - Alex J Callahan
- Department of Chemistry, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 77 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02139, United States
| | - Tara L Travaline
- FOG Pharmaceuticals Inc., 30 Acorn Park Drive, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02140, United States
| | - Satish Gandhesiri
- Department of Chemistry, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 77 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02139, United States
| | - Olena S Tokareva
- FOG Pharmaceuticals Inc., 30 Acorn Park Drive, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02140, United States
| | - Andrei Loas
- Department of Chemistry, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 77 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02139, United States
| | - John H McGee
- Department of Chemistry, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 77 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02139, United States
| | - Bradley L Pentelute
- Department of Chemistry, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 77 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02139, United States
- The Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 500 Main Street, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02142, United States
- Center for Environmental Health Sciences, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 77 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02139, United States
- Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, 415 Main Street, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02142, United States
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A De Novo Optimized Cell-Free System for the Expression of Soluble and Active Human Tumor Necrosis Factor-Alpha. BIOLOGY 2022; 11:biology11020157. [PMID: 35205024 PMCID: PMC8868817 DOI: 10.3390/biology11020157] [Citation(s) in RCA: 2] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 11/09/2021] [Revised: 01/14/2022] [Accepted: 01/17/2022] [Indexed: 11/27/2022]
Abstract
Simple Summary As a result of increasing demand for the pleiotropic cytokine TNF-α, recombinant human TNF-α protein with appropriate bioactivities was produced in several heterologous in vivo expression systems. While in vivo expression of this cytokine is laborious and lengthy, cell-free or in vitro expression system has the benefits of speed, simplicity, flexibility, focus of all the system energy on target protein synthesis alone, besides high soluble and functional protein yield. Therefore, we employed and optimized an E. coli-based cell-free system for the first time to express recombinant human TNF-α. Our findings revealed that cell-free expression system can be an alternative platform for producing soluble and functionally active recombinant TNF-α with a yield of 390 µg/mL in only 2 h at a temperature of 40 °C for further research and clinical trials. Abstract Cell-free (in vitro) expression is a robust alternative platform to the cell-based (in vivo) system for recombinant protein production. Tumor necrosis factor-alpha (TNF-α) is an effective pro-inflammatory cytokine with pleiotropic effects. The aim of the current study was de novo optimized expression of soluble and active human TNF-α by an in vitro method in an E. coli-based cell-free protein synthesis (CFPS) system and its biological activity evaluation. The codon-optimized synthetic human TNF-α gene was constructed by a two-step PCR, cloned into pET101/D-TOPO vector and then expressed by the E. coli CFPS system. Cell-free expression of the soluble protein was optimized using a response surface methodology (RSM). The anticancer activity of purified human TNF-α was assessed against three human cancer cell lines: Caco-2, HepG-2 and MCF-7. Data from RSM revealed that the lowest value (7.2 µg/mL) of cell-free production of recombinant human TNF-α (rhTNF-α) was obtained at a certain incubation time (6 h) and incubation temperature (20 °C), while the highest value (350 µg/mL) was recorded at 4 h and 35 °C. This rhTNF-α showed a significant anticancer potency. Our findings suggest a cell-free expression system as an alternative platform for producing soluble and functionally active recombinant TNF-α for further research and clinical trials.
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Active Human and Murine Tumor Necrosis Factor α Cytokines Produced from Silkworm Baculovirus Expression System. INSECTS 2021; 12:insects12060517. [PMID: 34199525 PMCID: PMC8230043 DOI: 10.3390/insects12060517] [Citation(s) in RCA: 2] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 04/30/2021] [Revised: 05/28/2021] [Accepted: 05/31/2021] [Indexed: 12/14/2022]
Abstract
The tumor necrosis factor α (TNFα) has been employed as a promising reagent in treating autoimmunity and cancer diseases. To meet the substantial requirement of TNFα proteins, we report in this study that mature types of recombinant human and murine TNFα proteins are successfully expressed in the baculovirus expression system using silkworm larvae as hosts. The biological activities of purified products were verified in culture murine L929 cells, showing better performance over a commercial Escherichia coli-derived murine TNFα. By comparing the activity of purified TNFα with or without the tag removal, it is also concluded that the overall activity of purified TNFα cytokines could be further improved by the complete removal of C-terminal fusion tags. Collectively, our current attempt demonstrates an alternative platform for supplying high-quality TNFα products with excellent activities for further pharmaceutical and clinical trials.
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Du J, Rehm BHA. Purification of target proteins from intracellular inclusions mediated by intein cleavable polyhydroxyalkanoate synthase fusions. Microb Cell Fact 2017; 16:184. [PMID: 29096637 PMCID: PMC5667439 DOI: 10.1186/s12934-017-0799-1] [Citation(s) in RCA: 12] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/13/2017] [Accepted: 10/24/2017] [Indexed: 11/12/2022] Open
Abstract
Background Recombinant protein production and purification from Escherichia coli is often accompanied with expensive and complicated procedures, especially for therapeutic proteins. Here it was demonstrated that, by using an intein cleavable polyhydroxyalkanoate synthase fusion, recombinant proteins can be first produced and sequestered on a natural resin, the polyhydroxyalkanoate (PHA) inclusions, then separated from contaminating host proteins via simple PHA bead isolation steps, and finally purified by specific release into the soluble fraction induced by a pH reduction. Results By translationally fusing a target protein to PHA synthase using a self-cleaving intein as linker, intracellular production of PHA beads was achieved. Upon isolation of respective PHA beads the soluble pure target protein was released by a simple pH shift to 6. The utility of this approach was exemplified by producing six target proteins, including Aequorea victoria green fluorescent protein (GFP), Mycobacterium tuberculosis vaccine candidate Rv1626, the immunoglobulin G (IgG) binding ZZ domain of protein A derived from Staphylococcus aureus, human tumor necrosis factor alpha (TNFα), human granulocyte colony-stimulating factor (G-CSF), and human interferon alpha 2b (IFNα2b). Conclusions Here a new method for production and purification of a tag-less protein was developed through intein cleavable polyhydroxyalkanoate synthase fusion. Pure target protein could be easily obtained without laborious downstream processing. Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (10.1186/s12934-017-0799-1) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.
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Affiliation(s)
- Jinping Du
- Institute of Fundamental Sciences, Massey University, Palmerston North, New Zealand
| | - Bernd H A Rehm
- Institute of Fundamental Sciences, Massey University, Palmerston North, New Zealand. .,Centre for Cell Factories and Biopolymers, Griffith Institute for Drug Discovery, Griffith University, Brisbane, Australia.
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Tripathi NK, Shrivastava A. Evaluation of antibody response against recombinant domain III proteins of dengue virus type 1 and 2. AIMS Microbiol 2017; 3:248-266. [PMID: 31294159 PMCID: PMC6605013 DOI: 10.3934/microbiol.2017.2.248] [Citation(s) in RCA: 4] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.6] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 02/06/2017] [Accepted: 04/05/2017] [Indexed: 11/18/2022] Open
Abstract
Dengue, a mosquito borne viral disease caused by dengue virus has emerged as a major health problem during the last few decades. The envelope domain III (DIII) protein of dengue virus is highly immunogenic and capable of inducing neutralizing antibodies against wild-type dengue virus. The envelope domain III protein is a potential subunit vaccine candidate as well as a diagnostic reagent for dengue. This report describes the high yield production and immunogenicity of recombinant DIII proteins of dengue virus type 1 and 2. The subunit DIII proteins were produced in Escherichia coli using batch and fed-batch fermentation process. Immobilized metal affinity chromatography was used to capture DIII proteins of dengue virus type 1 and 2. The purified proteins were refolded by diafiltration to achieve biologically active proteins. After fed-batch fermentation, the recombinant E. coli resulted in purified DIII proteins of about 10.06 mg and 47.70 mg per gram of dry cell weight for recombinant dengue virus type 1 and 2 respectively with more than 95% purity. Biological function of the purified DIII proteins were confirmed by their ability to generate DIII specific antibodies in mice. The DIII antigens in combination with adjuvant resulted antibody endpoint titers of 1:64,000 and 1:1,28,000 for recombinant dengue virus type 1 and 2 respectively. These findings establish that the DIII proteins in combination with adjuvant are immunogenic, which suggests that refolded and purified DIII proteins can be a potential vaccine candidates.
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Affiliation(s)
- Nagesh K Tripathi
- Bioprocess Scale up Facility, Defence Research and Development Establishment, Jhansi Road, Gwalior-474002, India
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Zakharova GS, Poloznikov AA, Chubar TA, Gazaryan IG, Tishkov VI. High-yield reactivation of anionic tobacco peroxidase overexpressed in Escherichia coli. Protein Expr Purif 2015; 113:85-93. [PMID: 25986322 DOI: 10.1016/j.pep.2015.05.007] [Citation(s) in RCA: 3] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 04/30/2015] [Revised: 05/08/2015] [Accepted: 05/10/2015] [Indexed: 10/23/2022]
Abstract
Anionic tobacco peroxidase (TOP) is extremely active in chemiluminescence reaction of luminol oxidation without addition of enhancers and more stable than horseradish peroxidase under antibody conjugation conditions. In addition, recombinant TOP (rTOP) produced in Escherichia coli is known to be a perfect direct electron transfer catalyst on electrodes of various origin. These features make the task of development of a high-yield reactivation protocol for rTOP practically important. Previous attempts to reactivate the enzyme from E. coli inclusion bodies were successful, but the reported reactivation yield was only 14%. In this work, we thoroughly screened the refolding conditions for dilution protocol and compared it with gel-filtration chromatography. The impressive reactivation yield in the dilution protocol (85%) was achieved for 8 μg/mL solubilized rTOP protein and the refolding medium containing 0.3 mM oxidized glutathione, 0.05 mM dithiothreitol, 5 mM CaCl2, 5% glycerol in 50 mM Tris-HCl buffer, pH 9.6, with 1 μM hemin added at the 24th hour of incubation. A practically important discovery was a 30-40% increase in the reactivation yield upon delayed addition of hemin. The reactivation yield achieved is one of the highest reported in the literature on protein refolding by dilution. The final yield of purified active non-glycosylated rTOP was ca. 60 mg per L of E. coli culture, close to the yield reported before for tomato and tobacco plants overexpressing glycosylated TOP (60 mg/kg biomass) and much higher than for the previously reported refolding protocol (2.6 mg per L of E. coli culture).
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Affiliation(s)
- G S Zakharova
- A.N. Bach Institute of Biochemistry, RAS, 119071 Moscow, Russia; Innovations and High Technologies MSU Ltd, 109559 Moscow, Russia.
| | - A A Poloznikov
- Innovations and High Technologies MSU Ltd, 109559 Moscow, Russia; M.V. Lomonosov Moscow State University, Chemistry Faculty, Department of Chemical Enzymology, 119899 Moscow, Russia
| | - T A Chubar
- M.V. Lomonosov Moscow State University, Chemistry Faculty, Department of Chemical Enzymology, 119899 Moscow, Russia
| | - I G Gazaryan
- M.V. Lomonosov Moscow State University, Chemistry Faculty, Department of Chemical Enzymology, 119899 Moscow, Russia
| | - V I Tishkov
- A.N. Bach Institute of Biochemistry, RAS, 119071 Moscow, Russia; Innovations and High Technologies MSU Ltd, 109559 Moscow, Russia; M.V. Lomonosov Moscow State University, Chemistry Faculty, Department of Chemical Enzymology, 119899 Moscow, Russia
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