Asam C, Roulias A, Parigiani MA, Haab A, Wallner M, Wolf M, Briza P, Bohle B, Ferreira F, Hauser M. Harmonization of the Genetic Code Effectively Enhances the Recombinant Production of the Major Birch Pollen Allergen Bet v 1.
Int Arch Allergy Immunol 2018;
177:116-122. [PMID:
29940558 DOI:
10.1159/000489707]
[Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.2] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 02/13/2018] [Accepted: 04/27/2018] [Indexed: 11/19/2022] Open
Abstract
BACKGROUND
Enhancing the quality and yield of protein production in heterologous expression systems is an important issue for developing new biopharmaceuticals. It has been shown that the dynamics of protein folding is influenced by codon frequencies. As codon usage frequencies are species specific, this can affect heterologous protein expression. In this respect, "codon harmonization," that is, the usage of synonymous codons with usage frequencies in the host resembling the usage frequencies in the native organism, is a promising strategy. As recombinant proteins are important tools in the area of allergy research, we investigated in this study the influence of codon harmonization on the production of the major birch pollen allergen Bet v 1.0101.
METHODS
To accomplish this task, parallel production of several batches of rBet v 1, BWT, together with a harmonized variant, BH, was applied. The expression yield of soluble and insoluble protein was assayed via densitometric analysis of -SDS-PAGEs for every batch. The quality of purified proteins was assessed with a variety of physicochemical methods including mass spectrometry, circular dichroism, dynamic light scattering, Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy, in vitro degradation, and 1-anilino-8-naphthalene sulfonate-binding assays. Patients' IgE reactivity was tested in enzyme-linked immunosorbent assays and rat basophil mediator release experiments.
RESULTS
No significant differences in the ligand-binding capacity and secondary structure elements, as well as, in immunological assays could be found; however, the production yield was drastically increased for BH.
CONCLUSION
We could show that codon harmonization is a powerful method to enhance protein yields in heterologous expression systems and should be considered especially for difficult-to-express proteins.
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