Display of heterologous proteins on the Saccharomyces cerevisiae surface display system using a single constitutive expression vector

Identification and Application of Epitopes in EtMIC1 of Eimeria tenella Recognized by the Monoclonal Antibodies 1-A1 and 1-H2

Eimeria tenella microneme-1 protein (EtMIC1) has been proposed to be a transmembrane protein, but this characteristic has not yet been confirmed experimentally. Furthermore, despite EtMIC1 being an important candidate antigen, its key epitope has not been reported. Here, two linear B-cell epitopes of EtMIC1, ⁹¹LITFATRSK⁹⁹ and ⁶⁹⁸ESLISAGE⁷⁰⁵, were identified by Western blotting using specific monoclonal antibodies (MAbs) and were named epitope I (located in the I-domain) and epitope CTR (located in the CTR domain), respectively. Sequence comparative analyses of these epitopes among Eimeria species that infect chickens showed that epitope I differs greatly across species, whereas epitope CTR is relatively conserved. Point mutation assay results indicate that all the amino acid residues of the epitopes recognized by MAb 1-A1 or 1-H2 are key amino acids involved in recognition. Comparative analyses of indirect immunofluorescence assay (IFA) results for MAbs 1-A1 and 1-H2 under both nonpermeabilization and permeabilization conditions indicate that epitope I is located on the outer side of the sporozoite surface membrane whereas epitope CTR is located on the inner side, together providing experimental evidence that EtMIC1 is a transmembrane protein. IFA also labeled the EtMIC1 protein on the parasitophorous vacuole membrane and on the surface of schizonts, which suggests that the EtMIC1 protein may play an important role in parasitophorous vacuole formation and E. tenella development. Immunoprotective efficacy experiments revealed that epitope I has good immunogenicity, as evidenced by its induction of high serum antibody levels, blood lymphocyte proliferation, and CD4⁺ blood lymphocyte percentage.

Monoclonal Antibody Preparation and Epitope Identification for Brucella melitensis Elongation Factor Tu

Elongation factor thermo-unstable (EF-Tu), an abundant multifunctional protein, is pivotal during protein synthesis and is an important antigen. Few studies have addressed the role of this protein in Brucella species, and the epitopes of this protein have not been reported. Here, we describe a monoclonal antibody (McAb), BD₆, for EF-Tu in Brucella melitensis. Using western blotting involving a series of partially overlapping recombinant EF-Tu truncation peptides, a novel linear B-cell epitope, ¹¹⁰QTREHIL¹¹⁶ (EF), was identified. Alanine-scanning mutagenesis revealed that residues Q¹¹⁰, T¹¹¹, R¹¹², I¹¹⁵, and L¹¹⁶ were core residues involved in recognition. Sequence alignment suggested that the epitope peptide was conserved among bacterial species but differed by one amino acid residue (I¹¹⁵) from the host sequence. The epitope peptide was recognized by sera from B. melitensis-infected mice, and while recombinant epitope peptide induced a strong humoral immune response, the corresponding mouse peptide, QTREHLL, did not. These results suggested that I¹¹⁵ may be the key residue for the host immune system to distinguish between bacterial and self epitope EF sequences. Indirect immunofluorescence and western blotting assays showed that epitope peptide could be used in Saccharomyces cerevisiae, human embryonic kidney cell (HEK-293), and chicken fibroblast cell (DF1) expression systems and immunoprecipitation assay. Together, our results suggested that the McAb BD₆ is a useful tool for further investigation of the potential functions of the EF-Tu protein in pathogen-host interactions, and that the epitope tag may be useful for application as a novel affinity tag to identify other bacterial pathogens, especially convenient for the identification of intracellular bacteria.

What We Do Not Know about Fungal Cell Adhesion Molecules

There has been extensive research on structure and function of fungal cell adhesion molecules, but the most of the work has been about adhesins in Candida albicans and Saccharomyces cerevisiae. These yeasts are members of a single ascomycete order, and adhesion molecules from the six other fungal phyla are only sparsely described in the literature. In these other phyla, most of the research is at the cellular level, rather than at the molecular level, so there has been little characterization of the adhesion molecules themselves. A catalog of known adhesins shows some common features: high Ser/Thr content, tandem repeats, N- and O-glycosylations, GPI anchors, dibasic sequence motifs, and potential amyloid-forming sequences. However, none of these features is universal. Known ligands include proteins and glycans on homologous cells and host cells. Existing and novel tools can exploit the availability of genome sequences to identify and characterize new fungal adhesins. These include bioinformatics tools and well-established yeast surface display models, which could be coupled with an adhesion substrate array. Thus, new knowledge could be exploited to answer key questions in fungal ecology, animal and plant pathogenesis, and roles of biofilms in infection and biomass turnover.

Screening for novel genes of Saccharomyces cerevisiae involved in recombinant antibody production

Cost-effective manufacturing of biopharmaceuticals in non-mammalian hosts still requires tremendous efforts in strain development. In order to expedite identification of novel leads for strain engineering, we used a transposon-mutagenized yeast genomic DNA library to create a collection of Saccharomyces cerevisiae deletion strains expressing a full-length IgG antibody. Using a high-throughput screening, transformants with either significantly higher or lower IgG expression were selected. The integration site of the transposon in three of the selected strains was located by DNA sequencing. The inserted DNA lay within the VPS30 and TAR1 open reading frame, and upstream of the HEM13 open reading frame. The complete coding sequence of these genes was deleted in the wild-type strain background to confirm the IgG expression phenotypes. Production of recombinant antibody was increased 2-fold in the Δvps30 strain, but only mildly affected secretion levels in the Δtar1 strain. Remarkably, expression of endogenous yeast acid phosphatase was increased 1.7- and 2.4-fold in Δvps30 and Δtar1 strains. The study confirmed the power of genome-wide high-throughput screens for strain development and highlights the importance of using the target molecule during the screening process.

Display of Eimeria tenella EtMic2 protein on the surface of Saccharomyces cerevisiae as a potential oral vaccine against chicken coccidiosis

S. cerevisiae is generally regarded as safe and benign organism and its surface display system may be used as a unique eukaryotic expression system that is suitable for expressing eukaryotic antigen. In addition to the convenience of vaccine delivery, the yeast cell wall has been shown to enhance the innate immunity when immunized with the yeast live oral vaccine. In the present study, we expressed the chicken coccidian E. tenella EtMic2, a microneme protein, on the surface of the S. cerevisiae and evaluated it as a potential oral vaccine for chicken against E. tenella challenge. The protective efficacy against a homologous challenge was evaluated by body weight gains, lesion scores and fecal oocyst shedding. The results showed that the live oral vaccine can improve weight gains, reduced cecal pathology and lower oocyst fecal shedding compared with non immunized controls. In addition, the yeast oral vaccine could stimulate humoral as well as cell mediate immune responses. These results suggested that EtMic2 displayed on the cell surface of S. cerevisiae could be used as potential live vaccine against chicken coccidiosis.