Intracellular expression of the anti-erbB-2 sFv N29 fails to accomplish efficient target modulation

Specific in vivo knockdown of protein function by intrabodies

Intracellular antibodies (intrabodies) are recombinant antibody fragments that bind to target proteins expressed inside of the same living cell producing the antibodies. The molecules are commonly used to study the function of the target proteins (i.e., their antigens). The intrabody technology is an attractive alternative to the generation of gene-targeted knockout animals, and complements knockdown techniques such as RNAi, miRNA and small molecule inhibitors, by-passing various limitations and disadvantages of these methods. The advantages of intrabodies include very high specificity for the target, the possibility to knock down several protein isoforms by one intrabody and targeting of specific splice variants or even post-translational modifications. Different types of intrabodies must be designed to target proteins at different locations, typically either in the cytoplasm, in the nucleus or in the endoplasmic reticulum (ER). Most straightforward is the use of intrabodies retained in the ER (ER intrabodies) to knock down the function of proteins passing the ER, which disturbs the function of members of the membrane or plasma proteomes. More effort is needed to functionally knock down cytoplasmic or nuclear proteins because in this case antibodies need to provide an inhibitory effect and must be able to fold in the reducing milieu of the cytoplasm. In this review, we present a broad overview of intrabody technology, as well as applications both of ER and cytoplasmic intrabodies, which have yielded valuable insights in the biology of many targets relevant for drug development, including α-synuclein, TAU, BCR-ABL, ErbB-2, EGFR, HIV gp120, CCR5, IL-2, IL-6, β-amyloid protein and p75NTR. Strategies for the generation of intrabodies and various designs of their applications are also reviewed.

Efficient isolation of soluble intracellular single-chain antibodies using the twin-arginine translocation machinery

One of the most commonly used recombinant antibody formats is the single-chain variable fragment (scFv) that consists of the antibody variable heavy chain connected to the variable light chain by a flexible linker. Since disulfide bonds are often necessary for scFv folding, it can be challenging to express scFvs in the reducing environment of the cytosol. Thus, we sought to develop a method for antigen-independent selection of scFvs that are stable in the reducing cytosol of bacteria. To this end, we applied a recently developed genetic selection for protein folding and solubility based on the quality control feature of the Escherichia coli twin-arginine translocation (Tat) pathway. This selection employs a tripartite sandwich fusion of a protein-of-interest with an N-terminal Tat-specific signal peptide and C-terminal TEM1 beta-lactamase, thereby coupling antibiotic resistance with Tat pathway export. Here, we adapted this assay to develop intrabody selection after Tat export (ISELATE), a high-throughput selection strategy for the identification of solubility-enhanced scFv sequences. Using ISELATE for three rounds of laboratory evolution, it was possible to evolve a soluble scFv from an insoluble parental sequence. We show also that ISELATE enables focusing of an scFv library in soluble sequence space before functional screening and thus can be used to increase the likelihood of finding functional intrabodies. Finally, the technique was used to screen a large repertoire of naïve scFvs for clones that conferred significant levels of soluble accumulation. Our results reveal that the Tat quality control mechanism can be harnessed for molecular evolution of scFvs that are soluble in the reducing cytoplasm of E. coli.

Downregulation of transferrin receptor surface expression by intracellular antibody

To deplete cellular iron uptake, and consequently inhibit the proliferation of tumor cells, we attempt to block surface expression of transferrin receptor (TfR) by intracellular antibody technology. We constructed two expression plasmids (scFv-HAK and scFv-HA) coding for intracellular single-chain antibody against TfR with or without endoplasmic reticulum (ER) retention signal, respectively. Then they were transfected tumor cells MCF-7 by liposome. Applying RT-PCR, Western blotting, immunofluorescence microscopy and immunoelectron microscope experiments, we insure that scFv-HAK intrabody was successfully expressed and retained in ER contrasted to the secreted expression of scFv-HA. Flow cytometric analysis confirmed that the TfR surface expression was markedly decreased approximately 83.4+/-2.5% in scFv-HAK transfected cells, while there was not significantly decrease in scFv-HA transfected cells. Further cell growth and apoptosis characteristics were evaluated by cell cycle analysis, nuclei staining and MTT assay. Results indicated that expression of scFv-HAK can dramatically induce cell cycle G1 phase arrest and apoptosis of tumor cells, and consequently significantly suppress proliferation of tumor cells compared with other control groups. For the first time this study demonstrates the potential usage of anti-TfR scFv-intrabody as a growth inhibitor of TfR overexpressing tumors.

Gene therapy for carcinoma of the breast

In view of the limited success of available treatment modalities for breast cancer, alternative and complementary strategies need to be developed. The delineation of the molecular basis of breast cancer provides the possibility of specific intervention by gene therapy through the introduction of genetic material for therapeutic purposes. In this regard, several gene therapy approaches for carcinoma of the breast have been developed. These approaches can be divided into six broad categories: (1) mutation compensation, (2) molecular chemotherapy, (3) proapoptotic gene therapy, (4) antiangiogenic gene therapy, (5) genetic immunopotentiation, and (6) genetic modulation of resistance/sensitivity. Clinical trials for breast cancer have been initiated to evaluate safety, toxicity, and efficacy. Combined modality therapy with gene therapy and chemotherapy or radiation therapy has shown promising results. It is expected that as new therapeutic targets and approaches are identified and advances in vector design are realized, gene therapy will play an increasing role in clinical breast cancer treatment.

A universal strategy for stable intracellular antibodies

The expression of intracellular antibodies (intrabodies) in mammalian cells has provided a powerful tool to manipulate microbial and cellular signalling pathways in a highly precise manner. However, several technical hurdles have thus far restricted their more widespread use. In particular, single-chain antibodies (scFvs) have been reported to fold poorly in the reducing environment of the cytoplasm and as such there has been a reluctance to use scFv-phage libraries as a source of intrabodies unless a preselection step was applied to identify these rare scFvs that could fold properly in the absence of disulfide bonds. Recently, we reported that scFvs can be efficiently expressed within the cytoplasm of bacteria when fused at the C-terminus of the Escherichia coli maltose-binding protein (MBP). Here, we demonstrate that such MBP-scFvs are similarly stabilized when expressed in the mammalian cell cytoplasm as well as other compartments. This was demonstrated by comparing MBP-scFv fusions to the corresponding unfused scFvs that activate a defective beta-galactosidase enzyme, others that neutralize the wild-type beta-galactosidase enzyme, and an antibody that blocks the epidermal growth factor receptor. In all cases, the MBP-scFvs significantly outperformed their unfused counterparts. Our results suggest that fusion of scFvs to MBP, and possibly to other "chaperones in the context of a fusion protein", may provide a universal approach for efficient expression of intrabodies in the mammalian cell cytoplasm. This strategy should allow investigators to bypass much of the in vitro scFv characterization that is often not predictive of in vivo intrabody function and provide a more efficient use of large native and synthetic scFv-phage libraries already in existence to identify intrabodies that will be active in vivo.

Direct Phage to Intrabody Screening (DPIS): Demonstration by Isolation of Cytosolic Intrabodies Against the TES1 Site of Epstein Barr Virus Latent Membrane Protein 1 (LMP1) that Block NF-κB Transactivation

The expression of intracellular antibodies (intrabodies) in eukaryotic cells has provided a powerful tool to manipulate microbial and cellular signaling pathways in a highly precise manner. However, there have been several technical issues that have restricted their more widespread use. In particular, single-chain antibodies (sFv) have been reported to fold poorly in the reducing environment of the cytoplasm and as such there has been a reluctance to use sFv-phage libraries as a source of intrabodies unless a pre-selection step to identify these rare sFvs from natural libraries or libraries of engineering sFvs that could fold properly in the absence of disulfide bonds were used. Here, we investigated whether target specific sFvs that are isolated from a 15 billion member non-immune human sFv-phage display library could be directly screened in pools as intrabodies without prior knowledge of their individual identity or purity within pools of antigen-specific sFvs. As the target, we used a synthetic transformation effector site 1 (TES1) polypeptide comprising the membrane-most proximal 34 amino acid residues of the carboxy-terminal cytoplasmic tail of the oncogenic latent membrane protein 1 (LMP1) of Epstein Barr virus, which serves as a docking site for adapter proteins of the tumor necrosis factor (TNF) receptor (TNFR)-associated factor (TRAF) family. Anti-TES1 sFvs, initially identified by phage ELISA screens, were grouped into pools according to the absorbance reading of the antigen-specific phage ELISA assays and then transferred as pools into eukaryotic expression vectors and expressed as cytoplasmic intrabodies. Using the pooling strategy, there was no loss of individual anti-TES1 sFvs in the transfer from prokaryotic to eukaryotic expression vectors. In addition, the initial assignments into sFv pools based on phage ELISA readings allowed the segregation of individual anti-TES1 sFvs into discrete or minimally overlapping intrabody pools. Further assessment of the biological activity of the anti-TES1 intrabody pools demonstrated that they were all able to selectively block F-LMP1-induced NFkappaB activity that was mediated through the TES1-site and to bind LMP1 protein with high efficiency. This direct phage to intrabody screening (DPIS) strategy should allow investigators to bypass much of the in vitro sFv characterization that is often not predictive of in vivo intrabody function and provide a more efficient use of large native and synthetic sFv phage libraries already in existence to identify intrabodies that are active in vivo.

Correlation between in vitro stability and in vivo performance of anti-GCN4 intrabodies as cytoplasmic inhibitors

A cellular assay system for measuring the activity of cytoplasmically expressed anti-GCN4 scFv fragments directed against the Gcn4p dimerization domain was established in the budding yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae. The inhibitory potential of different constitutively expressed anti-GCN4 scFv intrabodies was monitored by measuring the activity of beta-galactosidase expressed from a GCN4-dependent reporter gene. The in vivo performance of these scFv intrabodies in specifically decreasing reporter gene activity was related to their in vitro stability, measured by denaturant-induced equilibrium unfolding. A framework-engineered stabilized version showed significantly improved activity, while a destabilized point mutant of the anti-GCN4 wild-type showed decreased effects in vivo. These results indicate that stability engineering can result in improved performance of scFv fragments as intrabodies. Increasing the thermodynamic stability appears to be an essential factor for improving the yield of functional scFv in the reducing environment of the cytoplasm, where the conserved intradomain disulfides of antibody fragments cannot form.