Ligand supplementation as a method to increase soluble heterologous protein production

Heterologous Production of Antimicrobial Peptides: Notes to Consider

Heavy and irresponsible use of antibiotics in the last century has put selection pressure on the microbes to evolve even faster and develop more resilient strains. In the confrontation with such sometimes called "superbugs", the search for new sources of biochemical antibiotics seems to have reached the limit. In the last two decades, bioactive antimicrobial peptides (AMPs), which are polypeptide chains with less than 100 amino acids, have attracted the attention of many in the control of microbial pathogens, more than the other types of antibiotics. AMPs are groups of components involved in the immune response of many living organisms, and have come to light as new frontiers in fighting with microbes. AMPs are generally produced in minute amounts within organisms; therefore, to address the market, they have to be either produced on a large scale through recombinant DNA technology or to be synthesized via chemical methods. Here, heterologous expression of AMPs within bacterial, fungal, yeast, plants, and insect cells, and points that need to be considered towards their industrialization will be reviewed.

Structure Determination by Single-Particle Cryo-Electron Microscopy: Only the Sky (and Intrinsic Disorder) is the Limit

Traditionally, X-ray crystallography and NMR spectroscopy represent major workhorses of structural biologists, with the lion share of protein structures reported in protein data bank (PDB) being generated by these powerful techniques. Despite their wide utilization in protein structure determination, these two techniques have logical limitations, with X-ray crystallography being unsuitable for the analysis of highly dynamic structures and with NMR spectroscopy being restricted to the analysis of relatively small proteins. In recent years, we have witnessed an explosive development of the techniques based on Cryo-electron microscopy (Cryo-EM) for structural characterization of biological molecules. In fact, single-particle Cryo-EM is a special niche as it is a technique of choice for the structural analysis of large, structurally heterogeneous, and dynamic complexes. Here, sub-nanometer atomic resolution can be achieved (i.e., resolution below 10 Å) via single-particle imaging of non-crystalline specimens, with accurate 3D reconstruction being generated based on the computational averaging of multiple 2D projection images of the same particle that was frozen rapidly in solution. We provide here a brief overview of single-particle Cryo-EM and show how Cryo-EM has revolutionized structural investigations of membrane proteins. We also show that the presence of intrinsically disordered or flexible regions in a target protein represents one of the major limitations of this promising technique.

A combined approach for enhancing the stability of recombinant cis-dihydrodiol naphthalene dehydrogenase from Pseudomonas putida G7 allowed for the structural and kinetic characterization of the enzyme

The second enzyme of the naphthalene degradation pathway in Pseudomonas putida G7 is NahB, a dehydrogenase that converts cis-1,2-dihydroxy-1,2-dihydronaphthalene to 1,2-dihydroxynaphthalene. We report the cloning, optimization of expression, purification, kinetic studies and preliminary structural characterization of the recombinant NahB. The nahB gene was cloned into a T7 expression vector and the enzyme was overexpressed in Escherichia coli Rosetta (DE3) as an N-terminal hexa-histidine-tagged protein (6xHis-NahB). Using methods of enhancing protein stability in solution, we tested different expression, cell lysis, and purification protocols with and without ligand supplementation. The protein stability was evaluated by dynamic light scattering and circular dichroism spectroscopy assays. Best-derived protocols (expression at 18 °C, cell lysis with homogenizer, and three purification steps) were used to produce 20 mg of homogeneous 6xHis-NahB per liter of culture. The secondary and quaternary structures of 6xHis-NahB were assessed by circular dichroism and size-exclusion chromatography experiments, respectively. The enzyme was NAD⁺-dependent and active at pH 7.0 and 9.4 for the oxidation of the substrate. The Michaelis-Menten parameters determined at pH 7.0 and 25 °C for the substrate and cofactor, presented respective K_m values of 6 and 350 μM, and a k_cat value of 8.3 s^-1. Furthermore, we identified conditions for the crystallization of 6xHis-NahB. X-ray diffraction data were collected from a single 6xHis-NahB crystal which diffracted to 2.21 Å. The crystal belongs to space group I222, with unit-cell parameters a = 63.62, b = 69.50, and c = 117.47 Å. The tertiary structure of 6xHis-NahB was determined using the molecular replacement method. Further structural refinement is currently underway.

Explanatory chapter: troubleshooting protein expression: what to do when the protein is not soluble

Production of soluble protein remains a bottleneck in the biochemistry and structural biology fields. Unfortunately, there is no 'magic bullet' that solves all solubility problems. The following is a protocol to test whether a protein expressed recombinantly is soluble, and possible strategies to circumvent insolubility issues.

Recombinant expression of TLR5 proteins by ligand supplementation and a leucine-rich repeat hybrid technique

Vertebrate TLR5 directly binds bacterial flagellin proteins and activates innate immune responses against pathogenic flagellated bacteria. Structural and biochemical studies on the TLR5/flagellin interaction have been challenging due to the technical difficulty in obtaining active recombinant proteins of TLR5 ectodomain (TLR5-ECD). We recently succeeded in production of the N-terminal leucine rich repeats (LRRs) of Danio rerio (dr) TLR5-ECD in a hybrid with another LRR protein, hagfish variable lymphocyte receptor (VLR), and determined the crystal structure of its complex with flagellin D1-D2-D3 domains. Although the structure provides valuable information about the interaction, it remains to be revealed how the C-terminal region of TLR5-ECD contributes to the interaction. Here, we present two methods to obtain recombinant TLR5 proteins that contain the C-terminal region in a baculovirus expression system. First, production of biologically active full-length drTLR5-ECD was substantially enhanced by supplementation of expression culture with purified flagellin proteins. Second, we designed TLR5-VLR hybrids using an LRR hybrid technology by single and double LRR fusions and were able to express diverse regions of drTLR5-ECD, allowing us to detect a previously unidentified TLR5/flagellin interaction. The drTLR5-VLR hybrid technique was also successfully applied to human TLR5-ECD whose expression has been highly problematic. These alternative TLR5 expression strategies provide an opportunity to obtain a complete view of the TLR5/flagellin interaction and can be applied to other LRR proteins.

Expression, purification and primary crystallographic study of human androgen receptor in complex with DNA and coactivator motifs

The androgen receptor (AR) is a DNA-binding and hormone-activated transcription factor that plays critical roles in the development and progression of prostate cancer. The transcriptional function of AR is modulated by intermolecular interactions with DNA elements and coactivator proteins, as well as intramolecular interactions between AR domains; thus, the structural information from the full-length AR or a multi-domain fragment is essential for understanding the molecular basis of AR functions. Here we report the expression and purification of full-length AR protein and of a fragment containing its DNA-binding and ligand-binding domains connected by the hinge region in the presence of its natural ligand, dihydrotestosterone. Crystals of ligand-bound full-length AR and of the AR fragment in complex with DNA elements and coactivator motifs have been obtained and diffracted to low resolutions. These results help establish a foundation for pursuing further crystallographic studies of an AR/DNA complex.

Benefits of structural genomics for drug discovery research

While three dimensional structures have long been used to search for new drug targets, only a fraction of new drugs coming to the market has been developed with the use of a structure-based drug discovery approach. However, the recent years have brought not only an avalanche of new macromolecular structures, but also significant advances in the protein structure determination methodology only now making their way into structure-based drug discovery. In this paper, we review recent developments resulting from the Structural Genomics (SG) programs, focusing on the methods and results most likely to improve our understanding of the molecular foundation of human diseases. SG programs have been around for almost a decade, and in that time, have contributed a significant part of the structural coverage of both the genomes of pathogens causing infectious diseases and structurally uncharacterized biological processes in general. Perhaps most importantly, SG programs have developed new methodology at all steps of the structure determination process, not only to determine new structures highly efficiently, but also to screen protein/ligand interactions. We describe the methodologies, experience and technologies developed by SG, which range from improvements to cloning protocols to improved procedures for crystallographic structure solution that may be applied in "traditional" structural biology laboratories particularly those performing drug discovery. We also discuss the conditions that must be met to convert the present high-throughput structure determination pipeline into a high-output structure-based drug discovery system.