Alternative computational protocols for supercharging protein surfaces for reversible unfolding and retention of stability

Supercharged fluorescent proteins detect lanthanides via direct antennae signaling

A sustainable operation for harvesting metals in the lanthanide series is needed to meet the rising demand for rare earth elements across diverse global industries. However, existing methods are limited in their capacity for detection and capture at environmentally and industrially relevant lanthanide concentrations. Supercharged fluorescent proteins have solvent-exposed, negatively charged residues that potentially create multiple direct chelation pockets for free lanthanide cations. Here, we demonstrate that negatively supercharged proteins can bind and quantitatively report concentrations of lanthanides via an underutilized lanthanide-to-chromophore pathway of energy transfer. The top-performing sensors detect lanthanides in the micromolar to millimolar range and remain unperturbed by environmentally significant concentrations of competing metals. As a demonstration of the versatility and adaptability of this energy transfer method, we show proximity and signal transmission between the lanthanides and a supramolecular assembly of supercharged proteins, paving the way for the detection of lanthanides via programmable protein oligomers and materials.

Form Equals Function: Influence of Coacervate Architecture on Drug Delivery Applications

Complex coacervates, formed through electrostatic interactions between oppositely charged polymers, present a versatile platform for drug delivery, providing rapid assembly, selective encapsulation, and responsiveness to environmental stimuli. The architecture and properties of coacervates can be tuned by controlling structural and environmental design factors, which significantly impact the stability and delivery efficiency of the drugs. While environmental design factors such as salt, pH, and temperature play a crucial role in coacervate formation, structural design factors such as polymer concentration, polymer structure, mixing ratio, and chain length serve as the core framework that shapes coacervate architecture. These elements modulate the phase behavior and material properties of coacervates, allowing for a highly tunable system. In this review, we primarily analyze how these structural design factors contribute to the formation of diverse coacervate architecture, ranging from bulk coacervates to polyion complex micelles, vesicles, and cross-linked gels, though environmental design factors are considered. We then examine the effectiveness of these architectures in enhancing the delivery and efficacy of drugs across various administration routes, such as noninvasive (e.g., oral and transdermal) and invasive delivery. This review aims to provide foundational insights into the design of advanced drug delivery systems by examining how the origin and chemical structure of polymers influence coacervate architecture, which in turn defines their material properties. We then explore how the architecture can be tailored to optimize drug delivery for specific administration routes. This approach leverages the intrinsic properties derived from the coacervate architecture to enable targeted, controlled, and efficient drug release, ultimately enhancing therapeutic outcomes in precision medicine.

Enhancing Acid Resistance of Aspergillus niger Pectin Lyase through Surface Charge Design for Improved Application in Juice Clarification

Pectin lyases (PNLs) can enhance juice clarity and flavor by degrading pectin in highly esterified fruits, but their inadequate acid resistance leads to rapid activity loss in juice. This study aimed to improve the acid resistance of Aspergillus niger PNL pelA through surface charge design. A modification platform was established by fusing pelA with a protein tag and expressing the fusion enzyme in Escherichia coli. Four single-point mutants were identified to increase the surface charge using computational tools. Moreover, the combined mutant M6 (S514D/S538E) exhibited 99.8% residual activity at pH 3.0. The M6 gene was then integrated into the A. niger genome using a multigene integration system to obtain the recombinant PNL AM6. Notably, AM6 improved the light transmittance of orange juice to 45.3%, which was 8.39 times higher than that of pelA. In conclusion, AM6 demonstrated the best-reported acid resistance, making it a promising candidate for industrial juice clarification.

PySupercharge: a python algorithm for enabling ABC transporter bacterial secretion of all proteins through amino acid mutation

BACKGROUND

The process of producing proteins in bacterial systems and secreting them through ATP-binding cassette (ABC) transporters is an area that has been actively researched and used due to its high protein production capacity and efficiency. However, some proteins are unable to pass through the ABC transporter after synthesis, a phenomenon we previously determined to be caused by an excessive positive charge in certain regions of their amino acid sequence. If such an excessive charge is removed, the secretion of any protein through ABC transporters becomes possible.

RESULTS

In this study, we introduce 'linear charge density' as the criteria for possibility of protein secretion through ABC transporters and confirm that this criterion can be applied to various non-secretable proteins, such as SARS-CoV-2 spike proteins, botulinum toxin light chain, and human growth factors. Additionally, we develop a new algorithm, PySupercharge, that enables the secretion of proteins containing regions with high linear charge density. It selectively converts positively charged amino acids into negatively charged or neutral amino acids after linear charge density analysis to enable protein secretion through ABC transporters.

CONCLUSIONS

PySupercharge, which also minimizes functional/structural stability loss of the pre-mutation proteins through the use of sequence conservation data, is currently being operated on an accessible web server. We verified the efficacy of PySupercharge-driven protein supercharging by secreting various previously non-secretable proteins commonly used in research, and so suggest this tool for use in future research requiring effective protein production.

Supercharged Phosphotriesterase for improved Paraoxon activity

Phosphotriesterases (PTEs) represent a class of enzymes capable of efficient neutralization of organophosphates (OPs), a dangerous class of neurotoxic chemicals. PTEs suffer from low catalytic activity, particularly at higher temperatures, due to low thermostability and low solubility. Supercharging, a protein engineering approach via selective mutation of surface residues to charged residues, has been successfully employed to generate proteins with increased solubility and thermostability by promoting charge-charge repulsion between proteins. We set out to overcome the challenges in improving PTE activity against OPs by employing a computational protein supercharging algorithm in Rosetta. Here, we discover two supercharged PTE variants, one negatively supercharged (with -14 net charge) and one positively supercharged (with +12 net charge) and characterize them for their thermodynamic stability and catalytic activity. We find that positively supercharged PTE possesses slight but significant losses in thermostability, which correlates to losses in catalytic efficiency at all temperatures, whereas negatively supercharged PTE possesses increased catalytic activity across 25°C-55°C while offering similar thermostability characteristic to the parent PTE. The impact of supercharging on catalytic efficiency will inform the design of shelf-stable PTE and criteria for enzyme engineering.

Supercharged Fluorescent Protein-Apoferritin Cocrystals for Lighting Applications

The application of fluorescent proteins (FPs) in optoelectronics is hindered by the need for effective protocols to stabilize them under device preparation and operational conditions. Factors such as high temperatures, irradiation, and organic solvent exposure contribute to the denaturation of FPs, resulting in a low device performance. Herein, we focus on addressing the photoinduced heat generation associated with FP motion and rapid heat transfer. This leads to device temperatures of approximately 65 °C, causing FP-denaturation and a subsequent loss of device functionality. We present a FP stabilization strategy involving the integration of electrostatically self-assembled FP-apoferritin cocrystals within a silicone-based color down-converting filter. Three key achievements characterize this approach: (i) an engineering strategy to design positively supercharged FPs (+22) without compromising photoluminescence and thermal stability compared to their native form, (ii) a carefully developed crystallization protocol resulting in highly emissive cocrystals that retain the essential photoluminescence features of the FPs, and (iii) a strong reduction of the device's working temperature to 40 °C, leading to a 40-fold increase in Bio-HLEDs stability compared to reference devices.

Tailoring FPOX enzymes for enhanced stability and expanded substrate recognition

Fructosyl peptide oxidases (FPOX) are deglycating enzymes that find application as key enzymatic components in diabetes monitoring devices. Indeed, their use with blood samples can provide a measurement of the concentration of glycated hemoglobin and glycated albumin, two well-known diabetes markers. However, the FPOX currently employed in enzymatic assays cannot directly detect whole glycated proteins, making it necessary to perform a preliminary proteolytic treatment of the target protein to generate small glycated peptides that can act as viable substrates for the enzyme. This is a costly and time consuming step. In this work, we used an in silico protein engineering approach to enhance the overall thermal stability of the enzyme and to improve its catalytic activity toward large substrates. The final design shows a marked improvement in thermal stability relative to the wild type enzyme, a distinct widening of its access tunnel and significant enzymatic activity towards a range of glycated substrates.

Locally optimal geometry for surface-enhanced diffusion

Molecular diffusion in bulk liquids proceeds according to Fick's law, which stipulates that the particle current is proportional to the conductive area. This constrains the efficiency of filtration systems in which both selectivity and permeability are valued. Previous studies have demonstrated that interactions between the diffusing species and solid boundaries can enhance or reduce particle transport relative to bulk conditions. However, only cases that preserve the monotonic relationship between particle current and conductive area are known. In this paper, we expose a system in which the diffusive current increases when the conductive area diminishes. These examples are based on the century-old theory of a charged particle interacting with an electrical double layer. This surprising discovery could improve the efficiency of filtration and may advance our understanding of biological pore structures.

Supercharging carbohydrate-binding module alone enhances endocellulase thermostability, binding, and activity on cellulosic biomass

Lignocellulosic biomass recalcitrance to enzymatic degradation necessitates high enzyme loadings incurring large processing costs for industrial-scale biofuels or biochemicals production. Manipulating surface charge interactions to minimize non-productive interactions between cellulolytic enzymes and plant cell wall components (e.g., lignin or cellulose) via protein supercharging has been hypothesized to improve biomass biodegradability, but with limited demonstrated success to date. Here we characterize the effect of introducing non-natural enzyme surface mutations and net charge on cellulosic biomass hydrolysis activity by designing a library of supercharged family-5 endoglucanase Cel5A and its native family-2a carbohydrate binding module (CBM) originally belonging to an industrially relevant thermophilic microbe Thermobifida fusca . A combinatorial library of 33 mutant constructs containing different CBM and Cel5A designs spanning a net charge range of -52 to 37 was computationally designed using Rosetta macromolecular modelling software. Activity for all mutants was rapidly characterized as soluble cell lysates and promising mutants (containing mutations either on the CBM, Cel5A catalytic domain, or both CBM and Cel5A domains) were then purified and systematically characterized. Surprisingly, often endocellulases with mutations on the CBM domain alone resulted in improved activity on cellulosic biomass, with three top-performing supercharged CBM mutants exhibiting between 2-5-fold increase in activity, compared to native enzyme, on both pretreated biomass enriched in lignin (i.e., corn stover) and isolated crystalline/amorphous cellulose. Furthermore, we were able to clearly demonstrate that endocellulase net charge can be selectively fine-tuned using protein supercharging protocol for targeting distinct substrates and maximizing biocatalytic activity. Additionally, several supercharged CBM containing endocellulases exhibited a 5-10 °C increase in optimal hydrolysis temperature, compared to native enzyme, which enabled further increase in hydrolytic yield at higher operational reaction temperatures. This study demonstrates the first successful implementation of enzyme supercharging of cellulolytic enzymes to increase hydrolytic activity towards complex lignocellulosic biomass derived substrates.

N20D/N116E Combined Mutant Downward Shifted the pH Optimum of Bacillus subtilis NADH Oxidase

Cofactor regeneration is indispensable to avoid the addition of large quantities of cofactor NADH or NAD+ in oxidation-reduction reactions. Water-forming NADH oxidase (Nox) has attracted substantive attention as it can oxidize cytosolic NADH to NAD+ without concomitant accumulation of by-products. However, its applications have some limitations in some oxidation-reduction processes when its optimum pH is different from its coupled enzymes. In this study, to modify the optimum pH of BsNox, fifteen relevant candidates of site-directed mutations were selected based on surface charge rational design. As predicted, the substitution of this asparagine residue with an aspartic acid residue (N22D) or with a glutamic acid residue (N116E) shifts its pH optimum from 9.0 to 7.0. Subsequently, N20D/N116E combined mutant could not only downshift the pH optimum of BsNox but also significantly increase its specific activity, which was about 2.9-fold at pH 7.0, 2.2-fold at pH 8.0 and 1.2-fold at pH 9.0 that of the wild-type. The double mutant N20D/N116E displays a higher activity within a wide range of pH from 6 to 9, which is wider than the wide type. The usability of the BsNox and its variations for NAD+ regeneration in a neutral environment was demonstrated by coupling with a glutamate dehydrogenase for α-ketoglutaric acid (α-KG) production from L-glutamic acid (L-Glu) at pH 7.0. Employing the variation N20D/N116E as an NAD+ regeneration coenzyme could shorten the process duration; 90% of L-Glu were transformed into α-KG within 40 min vs. 70 min with the wild-type BsNox for NAD+ regeneration. The results obtained in this work suggest the promising properties of the BsNox variation N20D/N116E are competent in NAD+ regeneration applications under a neutral environment.

Rational identification of a high catalytic efficiency leucine dehydrogenase and process development for efficient synthesis of l-phenylglycine

Enzymatic asymmetric synthesis of chiral amino acids has great industrial potential. However, the low catalytic efficiency of high-concentration substrates limits their industrial application. Herein, using a combination of substrate catalytic efficiency prediction based on "open to closed" conformational change and substrate specificity prediction, a novel leucine dehydrogenase (TsLeuDH), with high substrate catalytic efficiency toward benzoylformic acid (BFA) for producing l-phenylglycine (l-Phg), was directly identified from 4695 putative leucine dehydrogenases in a public database. The specific activity of TsLeuDH was determined to be as high as 4253.8 U mg^-1 . Through reaction process optimization, a high-concentration substrate (0.7 m) was efficiently and completely converted within 90 min in a single batch, without any external coenzyme addition. Moreover, a continuous flow-feeding approach was designed using gradient control of the feed rate to reduce substrate accumulation. Finally, the highest overall substrate concentration of up to 1.2 m BFA could be aminated to l-Phg with conversion of >99% in 3 h, demonstrating that this new combination of enzyme process development is promising for large-scale application of l-Phg.

Fitness Landscape-Guided Engineering of Locally Supercharged Virus-like Particles with Enhanced Cell Uptake Properties

Protein-based nanoparticles are useful models for the study of self-assembly and attractive candidates for drug delivery. Virus-like particles (VLPs) are especially promising platforms for expanding the repertoire of therapeutics that can be delivered effectively as they can deliver many copies of a molecule per particle for each delivery event. However, their use is often limited due to poor uptake of VLPs into mammalian cells. In this study, we use the fitness landscape of the bacteriophage MS2 VLP as a guide to engineer capsid variants with positively charged surface residues to enhance their uptake into mammalian cells. By combining mutations with positive fitness scores that were likely to produce assembled capsids, we identified two key double mutants with internalization efficiencies as much as 67-fold higher than that of wtMS2. Internalization of these variants with positively charged surface residues depends on interactions with cell surface sulfated proteoglycans, and yet, they are biophysically similar to wtMS2 with low cytotoxicity and an overall negative charge. Additionally, the best-performing engineered MS2 capsids can deliver a potent anticancer small-molecule therapeutic with efficacy levels similar to antibody-drug conjugates. Through this work, we were able to establish fitness landscape-based engineering as a successful method for designing VLPs with improved cell penetration. These findings suggest that VLPs with positive surface charge could be useful in improving the delivery of small-molecule- and nucleic acid-based therapeutics.

Understanding Supramolecular Assembly of Supercharged Proteins

Ordered supramolecular assemblies have recently been created using electrostatic interactions between oppositely charged proteins. Despite recent progress, the fundamental mechanisms governing the assembly of oppositely supercharged proteins are not fully understood. Here, we use a combination of experiments and computational modeling to systematically study the supramolecular assembly process for a series of oppositely supercharged green fluorescent protein variants. We show that net charge is a sufficient molecular descriptor to predict the interaction fate of oppositely charged proteins under a given set of solution conditions (e.g., ionic strength), but the assembled supramolecular structures critically depend on surface charge distributions. Interestingly, our results show that a large excess of charge is necessary to nucleate assembly and that charged residues not directly involved in interprotein interactions contribute to a substantial fraction (∼30%) of the interaction energy between oppositely charged proteins via long-range electrostatic interactions. Dynamic subunit exchange experiments further show that relatively small, 16-subunit assemblies of oppositely charged proteins have kinetic lifetimes on the order of ∼10-40 min, which is governed by protein composition and solution conditions. Broadly, our results inform how protein supercharging can be used to create different ordered supramolecular assemblies from a single parent protein building block.

Protein Design: From the Aspect of Water Solubility and Stability

Water solubility and structural stability are key merits for proteins defined by the primary sequence and 3D-conformation. Their manipulation represents important aspects of the protein design field that relies on the accurate placement of amino acids and molecular interactions, guided by underlying physiochemical principles. Emulated designer proteins with well-defined properties both fuel the knowledge-base for more precise computational design models and are used in various biomedical and nanotechnological applications. The continuous developments in protein science, increasing computing power, new algorithms, and characterization techniques provide sophisticated toolkits for solubility design beyond guess work. In this review, we summarize recent advances in the protein design field with respect to water solubility and structural stability. After introducing fundamental design rules, we discuss the transmembrane protein solubilization and de novo transmembrane protein design. Traditional strategies to enhance protein solubility and structural stability are introduced. The designs of stable protein complexes and high-order assemblies are covered. Computational methodologies behind these endeavors, including structure prediction programs, machine learning algorithms, and specialty software dedicated to the evaluation of protein solubility and aggregation, are discussed. The findings and opportunities for Cryo-EM are presented. This review provides an overview of significant progress and prospects in accurate protein design for solubility and stability.

Generalized Approach towards Secretion-Based Protein Production via Neutralization of Secretion-Preventing Cationic Substrate Residues

Many heterologous proteins can be secreted by bacterial ATP-binding cassette (ABC) transporters, provided that they are fused with the C-terminal signal sequence, but some proteins are not secretable even though they carry the right signal sequence. The invention of a method to secrete these non-secretable proteins would be valuable both for understanding the secretory physiology of ABC transporters and for industrial applications. Herein, we postulate that cationic “supercharged” regions within the target substrate protein block the secretion by ABC transporters. We also suggest that the secretion of such substrate proteins can be rescued by neutralizing those cationic supercharged regions via structure-preserving point mutageneses. Surface-protruding, non-structural cationic amino acids within the cationic supercharged regions were replaced by anionic or neutral hydrophilic amino acids, reducing the cationic charge density. The examples of rescued secretions we provide include the spike protein of SARS-CoV-2, glutathione-S-transferase, streptavidin, lipase, tyrosinase, cutinase, growth factors, etc. In summary, our study provides a method to predict the secretability and a tool to rescue the secretion by correcting the secretion-blocking regions, making a significant step in understanding the physiological properties of ABC transporter-dependent protein secretion and laying the foundation for the development of a secretion-based protein-producing platform.

Spontaneous Orthogonal Protein Crosslinking via a Genetically Encoded 2-Carboxy-4-Aryl-1,2,3-Triazole

Here we report the design of N2 -carboxy-4-aryl-1,2,3-triazole-lysines (CATKs) and their site-specific incorporation into proteins via genetic code expansion. When introduced into the protein dimer interface, CATKs permitted spontaneous, proximity-driven, site-selective crosslinking to generate covalent protein dimers in living cells, with phenyl-bearing CATK-1 exhibiting high reactivity toward the proximal Lys and Tyr. Furthermore, when introduced into the N-terminal β-strand of either a single-chain VHH antibody or a supercharged monobody, CATK-1 enabled site-specific, inter-strand, orthogonal crosslinking with a proximal Tyr located on the opposing β-strand. Compared with a non-crosslinked monobody, the orthogonally crosslinked monobody displayed improved cellular uptake and enhanced proteolytic stability against an endosomal enzyme. The robust crosslinking reactivity of CATKs should facilitate the design of novel protein topologies with improved physicochemical properties.

Aggregation or phase separation can be induced in highly charged proteins by small charged biomolecules

Protein phase separation in biological systems has captured the attention of scientists in the last decade; however, the main mechanism underlying protein phase separation in cells remains unclear. Biologists, physicists, and chemists have all tried to understand this important biological phenomenon, each using their own unique techniques and language. Each subject has its advantages in explaining protein phase separation; however, in this study, we find that the chemical language of molecular structure is the key to explaining the mechanism underlying protein phase separation. Using fluroescence microscopy and molecular dynamics, this study identifies small multivalently charged biomolecules, such as nucleoside triphosphate (negatively charged) and polyamine (positively charged), as important drivers of phase separation of highly charged proteins in cells.

Charge Engineering Improves the Performance of Bst DNA Polymerase Fusions

The charge states of proteins can greatly influence their stabilities and interactions with substrates, and the addition of multiple charges (supercharging) has been shown to be a successful approach for engineering protein stability and function. The addition of a fast-folding fusion domain to the Bacillus stearothermophilus DNA polymerase improved its functionality in isothermal amplification assays, and further charge engineering of this domain has increased both protein stability and diagnostics performance. When combined with mutations that stabilize the core of the protein, the charge-engineered fusion domain leads to the ability to carry out loop-mediated isothermal amplification (LAMP) at temperatures up to 74° C or in the presence of high concentrations of urea, with detection times under 10 min. Adding both positive and negative charges to the fusion domain led to changes in the relative reverse transcriptase and DNA polymerase activities of the polymerase. Overall, the development of a modular fusion domain whose charged surface can be modified at will should prove to be of use in the engineering of other polymerases and, in general, may prove useful for protein stabilization.

Highly Selective Lysine Acylation in Proteins Using a Lys-His Tag Sequence

Chemical modification of proteins has numerous applications, but it has been challenging to achieve the required high degree of selectivity on lysine amino groups. Recently, we described the highly selective acylation of proteins with an N-terminal Gly-His₆ segment. This tag promoted acylation of the N-terminal N^α -amine resulting in stable conjugates. Herein, we report the peptide sequences His_n -Lys-His_m , which we term Lys-His tags. In combination with simple acylating agents, they facilitate the acylation of the designated Lys N^ϵ -amine under mild conditions and with high selectivity over native Lys residues. We show that the Lys-His tags, which are 7 to 10 amino acids in length and still act as conventional His tags, can be inserted in proteins at the C-terminus or in loops, thus providing high flexibility regarding the site of modification. Finally, the selective and efficient acylation of the therapeutic antibody Rituximab, pure or mixed with other proteins, demonstrates the scope of the Lys-His tag acylation method.

Significantly Improving the Thermostability and Catalytic Efficiency of Streptomyces mobaraenesis Transglutaminase through Combined Rational Design

Streptomyces mobaraenesis transglutaminase has been widely used in food processing. We here significantly improved the catalytic properties of S2P-S23V-Y24N-S199A-K294L (TGm1), a highly stabilized variant of the transglutaminase. First, a virtual proline scan was performed based on folding free energy changes to obtain TGm1 variants with enhanced thermostability. Second, the residues within 15 Å of Cys64 in the enzyme-substrate complex of TGm1 were subjected to virtual saturation mutagenesis to generate the variants with reduced binding free energy and increased activity. After combining the favorable mutations, we obtained the variant FRAPD-TGm1-E28T-A265P-A287P (FRAPD-TGm2), exhibiting 66.9 min of half-life at 60 °C (t_1/2(60 °C)), 67.8 °C of melting temperature (T_m), and 71.8 U/mg of specific activity, which are 2-fold, 2.6 °C, and 43.8% higher than those of FRAPD-TGm1, respectively. At last, to increase the surface negative net charge of FRAPD-TGm2, we introduced the mutations N96E-S144E-N163D-R183E-R208E-K325E, yielding FRAPD-TGm3. The latter's t_1/2(60 °C), T_m, and specific activity were 122.9 min, 68.6 °C, and 83.7 U/mg, which are 83.8%, 0.8 °C, and 16.6% higher than the former, respectively. FRAPD-TGm3 is thus a robust candidate for transglutaminase application.

Improvement of the halotolerance of a Bacillus serine protease by protein surface engineering

A moderately halotolerant serine protease was previously isolated from Bacillus subtilis from salted, fermented food. Eight mutation sites on the protein surface were selected for protein engineering based on sequence and structural comparisons with moderately halotolerant proteases and homologous non-halotolerant proteases. The newly constructed multiple mutants with substituted Asp and Arg residues were compared with the recombinant wild type (rApr) and the previously constructed mAla-8 substituted with Ala to analyze the contribution of protein surface charge to the salt adaptation of the protease. The three mutants showed >1.2-fold greater halotolerance than rApr. In addition, the mutants showed a broader range of pH stability than rApr, retaining >80% of their maximum activity in the pH range 5.0-11. The mutants also retained >75% of their activity after incubation for 1 h at pH 8.0 and 55°C or at pH 11.5 and 25°C. The Asp and Arg residues exchanged by multiple substitution probably played a role in increasing protein surface hydration and solubility in high salt conditions. This study illustrated that increasing a high proportion of the negative or positive charge on the surface of the Bacillus serine protease stably improved the protein's salt adaptation.

ATP and Tri-Polyphosphate (TPP) Suppress Protein Aggregate Growth by a Supercharging Mechanism

A common strategy to increase aggregation resistance is through rational mutagenesis to supercharge proteins, which leads to high colloidal stability, but often has the undesirable effect of lowering conformational stability. We show this trade-off can be overcome by using small multivalent polyphosphate ions, adenosine triphosphate (ATP) and tripolyphosphate (TPP) as excipients. These ions are equally effective at suppressing aggregation of ovalbumin and bovine serum albumin (BSA) upon thermal stress as monitored by dynamic and static light scattering. Monomer loss kinetic studies, combined with measurements of native state protein–protein interactions and ζ-potentials, indicate the ions reduce aggregate growth by increasing the protein colloidal stability through binding and overcharging the protein. Out of three additional proteins studied, ribonuclease A (RNaseA), α-chymotrypsinogen (α-Cgn), and lysozyme, we only observed a reduction in aggregate growth for RNaseA, although overcharging by the poly-phosphate ions still occurs for lysozyme and α-Cgn. Because the salts do not alter protein conformational stability, using them as excipients could be a promising strategy for stabilizing biopharmaceuticals once the protein structural factors that determine whether multivalent ion binding will increase colloidal stability are better elucidated. Our findings also have biological implications. Recently, it has been proposed that ATP also plays an important role in maintaining intracellular biological condensates and preventing protein aggregation in densely packed cellular environments. We expect electrostatic interactions are a significant factor in determining the stabilizing ability of ATP towards maintaining proteins in non-dispersed states in vivo.

Resurfacing receptor binding domain of Colicin N to enhance its cytotoxic effect on human lung cancer cells

Colicin N (ColN) is a bacteriocin secreted by Escherichia coli (E. coli) to kill other Gram-negative bacteria by forcefully generating ion channels in the inner membrane. In addition to its bactericidal activity, ColN have been reported to selectively induce apoptosis in human lung cancer cells via the suppression of integrin modulated survival pathway. However, ColN showed mild toxicity against human lung cancer cells which could be improved for further applications. The protein resurfacing strategy was chosen to engineer ColN by extensive mutagenesis at solvent­-exposed residues on ColN. The highly accessible Asp and Glu on wild­type ColN (ColN^WT) were replaced by Lys to create polycationic ColN (ColN⁺¹²). Previous studies have shown that increase of positive charges on proteins leads to the enhancement of mammalian cell penetration as well as increased interaction with negatively charged surface of cancer cells. Those solvent­-exposed residues of ColN were identified by Rosetta and AvNAPSA (Average number of Neighboring Atoms Per Side­chain Atom) approaches. The findings revealed that the structural features and stability of ColN⁺¹² determined by circular dichroism were similar to ColN^WT. Furthermore, the toxicity of ColN⁺¹² was cancer ­selective. Human lung cancer cells, H460 and H23, were sensitive to ColN but human dermal papilla cells were not. ColN⁺¹² also showed more potent toxicity than ColN^WT in cancer cells. This confirmed that polycationic resurfacing method has enabled us to improve the anticancer activity of ColN towards human lung cancer cells.

Utilizing the ABC Transporter for Growth Factor Production by fleQ Deletion Mutant of Pseudomonas fluorescens

Pseudomonas fluorescens, a gram-negative bacterium, has been proven to be a capable protein manufacturing factory (PMF). Utilizing its ATP-binding cassette (ABC) transporter, a type I secretion system, P. fluorescens has successfully produced recombinant proteins. However, besides the target proteins, P. fluorescens also secretes unnecessary background proteins that complicate protein purification and other downstream processes. One of the background proteins produced in large amounts is FliC, a flagellin protein. In this study, the master regulator of flagella gene expression, fleQ, was deleted from P. fluorescens Δtp, a lipase and protease double-deletion mutant, via targeted gene knockout. FleQ directs flagella synthesis, so the new strain, P. fluorescens ΔfleQ, does not produce flagella-related proteins. This not only simplifies purification but also makes P. fluorescens ΔfleQ an eco-friendly expression host because it will not survive outside a controlled environment. Six recombinant growth factors, namely, insulin-like growth factors I and II, beta-nerve growth factor, fibroblast growth factor 1, transforming growth factor beta, and tumor necrosis factor beta, prepared using our supercharging method, were successfully secreted by P. fluorescens ΔfleQ. Our findings demonstrate the potential of P. fluorescens ΔfleQ, combined with our supercharging process, as a PMF.

Anion solvation enhanced by positive supercharging mutations preserves thermal stability of an antibody in a wide pH range

Proteins function through interactions with other molecules. In protein engineering, scientists often engineer proteins by mutating their amino acid sequences on the protein surface to improve various physicochemical properties. "Supercharging" is a method to design proteins by mutating surface residues with charged amino acids. Previous studies demonstrated that supercharging mutations conferred better thermal resistance, solubility, and cell penetration to proteins. Likewise, antibodies recognize antigens through the antigen-binding site on the surface. The genetic and structural diversity of antibodies leads to high specificity and affinity toward antigens, enabling antibodies to be versatile tools in various applications. When assessing therapeutic antibodies, surface charge is an important factor to consider because the isoelectric point plays a role in protein clearance inside the body. In this study, we explored how supercharging mutations affect physicochemical properties of antibodies. Starting from a crystal structure of an antibody with the net charge of -4, we computationally designed a supercharged variant possessing the net charge of +10. The positive-supercharged antibody exhibited marginal improvement in thermal stability, but the secondary structure and the binding affinity to the antigen (net charge of +8) were preserved. We also used physicochemical measurements and molecular dynamics simulations to analyze the effects of supercharging mutations in sodium phosphate buffer with different pH and ion concentrations, which revealed preferential solvation of phosphate ions to the supercharged surface relative to the wild-type surface. These results suggest that supercharging would be a useful approach to preserving thermal stability of antibodies in a wide range of pH, which may enable further diversification of antibody repertoires beyond natural evolution.

Investigation of Supercharging as A Strategy to Enhance the Solubility and Plasminogen Cleavage Activity of Reteplase

Background

Reteplase, the recombinant form of tissue plasminogen activator, is a thrombolytic drug with outstanding characteristics, while demonstrating limited solubility and reduced plasminogen activation. Previously, we in silico designed a variant of Reteplase with positively supercharged surface, which showed promising stability, solubility and activity. This study was devoted to evaluation of the utility of supercharging technique for enhancing these characteristics in Reteplase.

Objective

To test the hypothesis that reinforced surface charge of a rationally-designed Reteplase variant will not compromise its stability, will increase its solubility, and will enhance its plasminogen cleavage activity.

Materials and Methods

Supercharged Reteplase coding sequence was cloned in pDest527 vector and expressed in E. coli BL21 (DE3). The expressed protein was extracted by cell disruption. Inclusion bodies were solubilized using guanidine hydrochloride, followed by dialysis for protein refolding. After confirmation with SDS-PAGE and western blotting, extracted proteins were assayed for solubility and tested for bioactivity.

Results

SDS-PAGE and western blot analysis confirmed the successful expression of Reteplase. Western blot experiments showed most of Reteplase expressed in the insoluble form. Plasminogen cleavage assay showed significantly higher activity of the supercharged variant than the wild type protein (P < 0.001). The stability of the supercharged variant was also comparable to the wild type.

Conclusion

Our findings, i.e. the contribution of the surface supercharging technique to retained stability, enhanced plasminogen cleavage activity, while inefficiently changed solubility of Reteplase, contain implications for future designs of soluble variants of this fibrinolytic protein drug.

Protein Vesicles Self-Assembled from Functional Globular Proteins with Different Charge and Size

Protein vesicles can be synthesized by mixing two fusion proteins: an elastin-like polypeptide (ELP) fused to an arginine-rich leucine zipper (Z_R) with a globular, soluble protein fused to a glutamate-rich leucine zipper (Z_E). Currently, only fluorescent proteins have been incorporated into vesicles; however, for protein vesicles to be useful for biocatalysis, drug delivery, or biosensing, vesicles must assemble from functional proteins that span an array of properties and functionalities. In this work, the globular protein was systematically changed to determine the effects of the surface charge and size on the self-assembly of protein vesicles. The formation of microphases, which included vesicles, coacervates, and hybrid structures, was monitored at different assembly conditions to determine the phase space for each globular protein. The results show that the protein surface charge has a small effect on vesicle self-assembly. However, increasing the size of the globular protein decreases the vesicle size and increases the stability at lower Z_E/Z_R molar ratios. The phase diagrams created can be used as guidelines to incorporate new functional proteins into vesicles. Furthermore, this work reports catalytically active enzyme vesicles, demonstrating the potential for the application of vesicles as biocatalysts or biosensors.

Protein electrostatics: From computational and structural analysis to discovery of functional fingerprints and biotechnological design

Computationally driven engineering of proteins aims to allow them to withstand an extended range of conditions and to mediate modified or novel functions. Therefore, it is crucial to the biotechnological industry, to biomedicine and to afford new challenges in environmental sciences, such as biocatalysis for green chemistry and bioremediation. In order to achieve these goals, it is important to clarify molecular mechanisms underlying proteins stability and modulating their interactions. So far, much attention has been given to hydrophobic and polar packing interactions and stability of the protein core. In contrast, the role of electrostatics and, in particular, of surface interactions has received less attention. However, electrostatics plays a pivotal role along the whole life cycle of a protein, since early folding steps to maturation, and it is involved in the regulation of protein localization and interactions with other cellular or artificial molecules. Short- and long-range electrostatic interactions, together with other forces, provide essential guidance cues in molecular and macromolecular assembly. We report here on methods for computing protein electrostatics and for individual or comparative analysis able to sort proteins by electrostatic similarity. Then, we provide examples of electrostatic analysis and fingerprints in natural protein evolution and in biotechnological design, in fields as diverse as biocatalysis, antibody and nanobody engineering, drug design and delivery, molecular virology, nanotechnology and regenerative medicine.

Supercharged Proteins and Polypeptides

Electrostatic interactions play a vital role in nature. Biomacromolecules such as proteins are orchestrated by electrostatics, among other intermolecular forces, to assemble and organize biochemistry. Natural proteins with a high net charge exist in a folded state or are unstructured and can be an inspiration for scientists to artificially supercharge other protein entities. Recent findings show that supercharging proteins allows for control of their properties such as temperature resistance and catalytic activity. One elegant method to transfer the favorable properties of supercharged proteins to other proteins is the fabrication of fusions. Genetically engineered, supercharged unstructured polypeptides (SUPs) are just one promising fusion tool. SUPs can also be complexed with artificial entities to yield thermotropic and lyotropic liquid crystals and liquids. These architectures represent novel bulk materials that are sensitive to external stimuli. Interestingly, SUPs undergo fluid-fluid phase separation to form coacervates. These coacervates can even be directly generated in living cells or can be combined with dissipative fiber assemblies that induce life-like features. Supercharged proteins and SUPs are developed into exciting classes of materials. Their synthesis, structures, and properties are summarized. Moreover, potential applications are highlighted and challenges are discussed.

Improving the solubility, activity, and stability of reteplase using in silico design of new variants

Reteplase (recombinant plasminogen activator, r-PA) is a thrombolytic agent recombined from tissue-type plasminogen activator (t-PA), which has several prominent features such as strong thrombolytic ability and E. coli expressibility. Despite these outstanding features, it demonstrates reduced fibrin binding affinity, reduced stimulation of protease activity, and lower solubility, hence higher aggregation propensity, compared to t-PA. The present study was devoted to design r-PA variants with comparable structural stability, enhanced biological activity, and high solubility. For this purpose, computational molecular modeling techniques were utilized. The supercharging technique was applied for r-PA to designing new species of the protein. Based on the results from in silico evaluation of selected mutations in comparison to the wild-type r-PA, the designed supercharged mutant (S7 variant) exhibited augmented stability, decreased solvation energy, as well as enhanced binding affinity to fibrin. The data also implied increased plasminogen cleavage activity of the new variant. These findings have implications to therapies which involve removal of intravascular blood clots, including the treatment of acute myocardial infarction.

Catalysis of Thermostable Alcohol Dehydrogenase Improved by Engineering the Microenvironment through Fusion with Supercharged Proteins

The enzymatic microenvironment can impact biocatalytic activity; however, these effects can be difficult to investigate as mutations and fusions can introduce multiple variables and overlapping effects. The fusion of a supercharged protein is a potentially facile means to alter the enzymatic microenvironment. We have investigated complexes made between a thermostable alcohol dehydrogenase (AdhD) and superfolding green fluorescent protein (sfGFP) mutants with extreme surface charges. Three charged sfGFP variants, -30, 0, and +36 were covalently attached to AdhD through the SpyCatcher/SpyTag system. Specific rates for the NAD⁺ -dependent oxidation of butane-2,3-diol were significantly increased in the -30 sfGFP complex, a mixed effect was seen for the 0 sfGFP complexes, and the rates were unaffected by +36 sfGFP complexation. Reactions performed at various pH values (7.8-9.8) and salt concentrations (7.75-500 mm) showed that there was a complex interplay between these effects that was consistent with fusion proteins affecting the local ionic strength, as opposed to the local pH. Steady-state kinetic analyses were performed with the -30 and 0 AdhD-sfGFP complexes. The overall catalytic efficiency was dependent on the charge of the fused sfGFP variant; the -30 sfGFP fusions exhibited the largest beneficial effects at pH 8.8. The impact of the fusions on the apparent ionic strength provides further insight into the effects of charged patches observed on metabolon-forming enzyme complexes.

An iterative computational design approach to increase the thermal endurance of a mesophilic enzyme

BACKGROUND

Strategies for maximizing the microbial production of bio-based chemicals and fuels include eliminating branched points to streamline metabolic pathways. While this is often achieved by removing key enzymes, the introduction of nonnative enzymes can provide metabolic shortcuts, bypassing branched points to decrease the production of undesired side-products. Pyruvate decarboxylase (PDC) can provide such a shortcut in industrially promising thermophilic organisms; yet to date, this enzyme has not been found in any thermophilic organism. Incorporating nonnative enzymes into host organisms can be challenging in cases such as this, where the enzyme has evolved in a very different environment from that of the host.

RESULTS

In this study, we use computational protein design to engineer the Zymomonas mobilis PDC to resist thermal denaturation at the growth temperature of a thermophilic host. We generate thirteen PDC variants using the Rosetta protein design software. We measure thermal stability of the wild-type PDC and PDC variants using circular dichroism. We then measure and compare enzyme endurance for wild-type PDC with the PDC variants at an elevated temperature of 60 °C (thermal endurance) using differential interference contrast imaging.

CONCLUSIONS

We find that increases in melting temperature (T_m) do not directly correlate with increases in thermal endurance at 60 °C. We also do not find evidence that any individual mutation or design approach is the major contributor to the most thermostable PDC variant. Rather, remarkable cooperativity among sixteen thermostabilizing mutations is key to rationally designing a PDC with significantly enhanced thermal endurance. These results suggest a generalizable iterative computational protein design approach to improve thermal stability and endurance of target enzymes.

OptMAVEn-2.0: De novo Design of Variable Antibody Regions against Targeted Antigen Epitopes

Monoclonal antibodies are becoming increasingly important therapeutic agents for the treatment of cancers, infectious diseases, and autoimmune disorders. However, laboratory-based methods of developing therapeutic monoclonal antibodies (e.g., immunized mice, hybridomas, and phage display) are time-consuming and are often unable to target a specific antigen epitope or reach (sub)nanomolar levels of affinity. To this end, we developed Optimal Method for Antibody Variable region Engineering (OptMAVEn) for de novo design of humanized monoclonal antibody variable regions targeting a specific antigen epitope. In this work, we introduce OptMAVEn-2.0, which improves upon OptMAVEn by (1) reducing computational resource requirements without compromising design quality; (2) clustering the designs to better identify high-affinity antibodies; and (3) eliminating intra-antibody steric clashes using an updated set of clashing parts from the Modular Antibody Parts (MAPs) database. Benchmarking on a set of 10 antigens revealed that OptMAVEn-2.0 uses an average of 74% less CPU time and 84% less disk storage relative to OptMAVEn. Testing on 54 additional antigens revealed that computational resource requirements of OptMAVEn-2.0 scale only sub-linearly with respect to antigen size. OptMAVEn-2.0 was used to design and rank variable antibody fragments targeting five epitopes of Zika envelope protein and three of hen egg white lysozyme. Among the top five ranked designs for each epitope, recovery of native residue identities is typically 45–65%. MD simulations of two designs targeting Zika suggest that at least one would bind with high affinity. OptMAVEn-2.0 can be downloaded from our GitHub repository and webpage as (links in Summary and Discussion section).

RosettaAntibodyDesign (RAbD): A general framework for computational antibody design

A structural-bioinformatics-based computational methodology and framework have been developed for the design of antibodies to targets of interest. RosettaAntibodyDesign (RAbD) samples the diverse sequence, structure, and binding space of an antibody to an antigen in highly customizable protocols for the design of antibodies in a broad range of applications. The program samples antibody sequences and structures by grafting structures from a widely accepted set of the canonical clusters of CDRs (North et al., J. Mol. Biol., 406:228-256, 2011). It then performs sequence design according to amino acid sequence profiles of each cluster, and samples CDR backbones using a flexible-backbone design protocol incorporating cluster-based CDR constraints. Starting from an existing experimental or computationally modeled antigen-antibody structure, RAbD can be used to redesign a single CDR or multiple CDRs with loops of different length, conformation, and sequence. We rigorously benchmarked RAbD on a set of 60 diverse antibody-antigen complexes, using two design strategies-optimizing total Rosetta energy and optimizing interface energy alone. We utilized two novel metrics for measuring success in computational protein design. The design risk ratio (DRR) is equal to the frequency of recovery of native CDR lengths and clusters divided by the frequency of sampling of those features during the Monte Carlo design procedure. Ratios greater than 1.0 indicate that the design process is picking out the native more frequently than expected from their sampled rate. We achieved DRRs for the non-H3 CDRs of between 2.4 and 4.0. The antigen risk ratio (ARR) is the ratio of frequencies of the native amino acid types, CDR lengths, and clusters in the output decoys for simulations performed in the presence and absence of the antigen. For CDRs, we achieved cluster ARRs as high as 2.5 for L1 and 1.5 for H2. For sequence design simulations without CDR grafting, the overall recovery for the native amino acid types for residues that contact the antigen in the native structures was 72% in simulations performed in the presence of the antigen and 48% in simulations performed without the antigen, for an ARR of 1.5. For the non-contacting residues, the ARR was 1.08. This shows that the sequence profiles are able to maintain the amino acid types of these conserved, buried sites, while recovery of the exposed, contacting residues requires the presence of the antigen-antibody interface. We tested RAbD experimentally on both a lambda and kappa antibody-antigen complex, successfully improving their affinities 10 to 50 fold by replacing individual CDRs of the native antibody with new CDR lengths and clusters.

Antibody Affinity Maturation by Computational Design

The immune systems protect our bodies from foreign molecules or antigens, where antibodies play important roles. Antibodies evolve over time upon antigen encounter by somatically mutating their genome sequences. The end result is a series of antibodies that display higher affinities and specificities to specific antigens. This process is called affinity maturation. Recent improvements in computer hardware and modeling algorithms now enable the rational design of protein structures and functions, and several works on computer-aided antibody design have been published. In this chapter, we briefly describe computational methods for antibody affinity maturation, focusing on methods for sampling antibody conformations and for scoring designed antibody variants. We also discuss lessons learned from the successful computer-aided design of antibodies.

Web-accessible molecular modeling with Rosetta: The Rosetta Online Server that Includes Everyone (ROSIE)

The Rosetta molecular modeling software package provides a large number of experimentally validated tools for modeling and designing proteins, nucleic acids, and other biopolymers, with new protocols being added continually. While freely available to academic users, external usage is limited by the need for expertise in the Unix command line environment. To make Rosetta protocols available to a wider audience, we previously created a web server called Rosetta Online Server that Includes Everyone (ROSIE), which provides a common environment for hosting web-accessible Rosetta protocols. Here we describe a simplification of the ROSIE protocol specification format, one that permits easier implementation of Rosetta protocols. Whereas the previous format required creating multiple separate files in different locations, the new format allows specification of the protocol in a single file. This new, simplified protocol specification has more than doubled the number of Rosetta protocols available under ROSIE. These new applications include pK_a determination, lipid accessibility calculation, ribonucleic acid redesign, protein-protein docking, protein-small molecule docking, symmetric docking, antibody docking, cyclic toxin docking, critical binding peptide determination, and mapping small molecule binding sites. ROSIE is freely available to academic users at http://rosie.rosettacommons.org.

Charge Shielding Prevents Aggregation of Supercharged GFP Variants at High Protein Concentration

Understanding protein stability is central to combatting protein aggregation diseases and developing new protein therapeutics. At the high concentrations often present in biological systems, purified proteins can exhibit undesirable high solution viscosities and poor solubilities mediated by short-range electrostatic and hydrophobic protein-protein interactions. The interplay between protein amino acid sequence, protein structure, and solvent conditions to minimize protein-protein interactions is key to designing well-behaved pharmaceutical proteins. However, theoretical approaches have yet to yield a general framework to address these problems. Here, we analyzed the high concentration behavior of superfolder GFP (sfGFP) and two supercharged sfGFP variants engineered to have formal charges of -18 or +15. Under low cosolute conditions, sfGFP and the -18 variant formed a gel or phase separated at ∼10 mg/mL. Under conditions that screen surface charges, including formulations with high histidine or high NaCl concentrations, all three variants attained concentrations up to 250 mg/mL with moderate viscosities. Moreover, all three variants exhibited very similar viscosity-concentration profiles over this range. This effect was not mimicked by high sugar concentrations that exert excluded-volume effects without shielding charge. Collectively, these data demonstrate that charge shielding neutralizes not only long-range electrostatic interactions but also, surprisingly, short-range electrostatic effects due to surface charge anisotropy. This work shows that supercharged sfGFP behavior under high ionic strength is largely determined by particle geometry, a conclusion that is supported by colloid models and may be applicable to pharmaceutically relevant proteins.

Using natural sequences and modularity to design common and novel protein topologies

Protein design is still a challenging undertaking, often requiring multiple attempts or iterations for success. Typically, the source of failure is unclear, and scoring metrics appear similar between successful and failed cases. Nevertheless, the use of sequence statistics, modularity and symmetry from natural proteins, combined with computational design both at the coarse-grained and atomistic levels is propelling a new wave of design efforts to success. Here we highlight recent examples of design, showing how the wealth of natural protein sequence and topology data may be leveraged to reduce the search space and increase the likelihood of achieving desired outcomes.

Expression of Functional Human Sialyltransferases ST3Gal1 and ST6Gal1 in Escherichia coli

Sialyltransferases (STs) are disulfide-containing, type II transmembrane glycoproteins that catalyze the transfer of sialic acid to proteins and lipids and participate in the synthesis of the core structure oligosaccharides of human milk. Sialic acids are found at the outermost position of glycostructures, playing a key role in health and disease. Sialylation is also essential for the production of recombinant therapeutic proteins (RTPs). Despite their importance, availability of sialyltransferases is limited due to the low levels of stable, soluble and active protein produced in bacterial expression systems, which hampers biochemical and structural studies on these enzymes and restricts biotechnological applications. We report the successful expression of active human sialyltransferases ST3Gal1 and ST6Gal1 in commercial Escherichia coli strains designed for production of disulfide-containing proteins. Fusion of hST3Gal1 with different solubility enhancers and substitution of exposed hydrophobic amino acids by negatively charged residues (supercharging-like approach) were performed to promote solubility and folding. Co-expression of sialyltransferases with the chaperon/foldases sulfhydryl oxidase, protein disulfide isomerase and disulfide isomerase C was explored to improve the formation of native disulfide bonds. Active sialyltransferases fused with maltose binding protein (MBP) were obtained in sufficient amounts for biochemical and structural studies when expressed under oxidative conditions and co-expression of folding factors increased the yields of active and properly folded sialyltransferases by 20%. Mutation of exposed hydrophobic amino acids increased recovery of active enzyme by 2.5-fold, yielding about 7 mg of purified protein per liter culture. Functionality of recombinant enzymes was evaluated in the synthesis of sialosides from the β-d-galactoside substrates lactose, N-acetyllactosamine and benzyl 2-acetamido-2-deoxy-3-O-(β-d-galactopyranosyl)-α-d-galactopyranoside.