Transient expression in HEK 293 cells: an alternative to E. coli for the production of secreted and intracellular mammalian proteins

Transient transfection of human embryonic kidney cells (HEK 293) enables the rapid and affordable lab-scale production of recombinant proteins. In this chapter protocols for the expression and purification of both secreted and intracellular proteins using transient expression in HEK 293 cells are described.

Structural plasticity of eph receptor A4 facilitates cross-class ephrin signaling

The EphA4 tyrosine kinase cell surface receptor regulates an array of physiological processes and is the only currently known class A Eph receptor that binds both A and B class ephrins with high affinity. We have solved the crystal structure of the EphA4 ligand binding domain alone and in complex with (1) ephrinB2 and (2) ephrinA2. This set of structures shows that EphA4 has significant conformational plasticity in its ligand binding face. In vitro binding data demonstrate that it has a higher affinity for class A than class B ligands. Structural analyses, drawing on previously reported Eph receptor structures, show that EphA4 in isolation and in complex with ephrinA2 resembles other class A Eph receptors but on binding ephrinB2 assumes structural hallmarks of the class B Eph receptors. This interactive plasticity reveals EphA4 as a structural chameleon, able to adopt both A and B class Eph receptor conformations, and thus provides a molecular basis for EphA-type cross-class reactivity.

The production of glycoproteins by transient expression in Mammalian cells

In this chapter, protocols for the growth and transfection of Human Embryonic Kidney (HEK) 293T cells for small scale expression screening and large scale protein production are described. Transient expression in mammalian cells offers a method of rapidly producing glycoproteins with a relatively high throughput. HEK 293T cells, in particular, can be transfected with high efficiency (> 50% cell expression) and are amenable to culture at multi-litre scale. Growing cells in micro-plate format allows screening of large numbers of vectors in parallel to prioritise those amenable to scale-up and purification for subsequent structural or functional studies. The glycoform of the expressed protein can be modified by treating cell cultures with kifunensine which inhibits glycan processing during protein synthesis. This results in the production of a chemically homogeneous glycoprotein with short mannose-rich sugar chains attached to the protein backbone. If required, these can be readily removed by endoglycosidase treatment.