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1 Canadian Institutes of Health Research Group in Protein Structure and Function and Department of Biochemistry, University of Alberta, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada T6G 2H7
Reprint requests to: Brian D. Sykes, 4-19 Medical Sciences Building, University of Alberta, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada T6G 2H7; e-mail: Brian.Sykes{at}ualberta.ca; fax: (780) 492-0886.
(RECEIVED March 10, 2003; FINAL REVISION April 17, 2003; ACCEPTED April 23, 2003)
Article and publication are at http://www.genome.org/cgi/doi/10.1110/ps.0376003.
| Abstract |
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Keywords: NMR; GB-1; isotopic labeling; CNBr cleavage; affinity purification
Abbreviations: NMR, nuclear magnetic resonance GB-1, B1 immunoglobulin domain of streptococcal protein G cTnI, human cardiac troponin I cTnT, human cardiac troponin T CNBr, cyanogen bromide His, 6-poly histidine IPTG, isopropyl ß-D-thiogalactopyranoside MW, molecular weight NHE1, human sodium proton exchanger isoform 1 CapZ
1, actin capping protein
2xYT, 2X-yeast-tryptone media HPLC, high performance liquid chromatography MALDI-TOF, matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization-time of flight HSQC, heteronuclear single quantum coherence OD, optical density EDTA, ethylenediaminetetraacetic acid DSS, sodium 2,2-dimethyl-,2-silapantane-5-sulfonate
| Introduction |
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-helical lytic bee venom polypeptide melittin (Hristova et al. 2001), and an effector of intracellular Ca2+-signaling, phospholamban, an integral membrane 52-residue polypeptide composed of two
-helical regions connected by a ß-turn (Hutter et al. 2002; Pollesello and Annila 2002). Polypeptides attributed to diseased states such as the 37-residue islet amyloid polypeptide (hIAPP), which has been found to accumulate as amyloid fibrils in the pancreas of individuals with type II diabetes (Azriel and Gazit 2001; Mazor et al. 2002), as well as polypeptides such as LL-37, have demonstrated strong antimicrobial properties, leading to a novel class of treatment remedies of antibiotic-resistant pathogens (Gudmundsson et al. 1996; Saiman et al. 2001). Polypeptide regions can be generated from larger multidomain proteins using various proteolytic procedures, with generated regions retaining full biological activity of the parent domains. Biomedical advancements have exploited this ability of peptides to retain activity to allow them to be used as tools in research, such as for potential therapeutic agents against disease (Jacobsen 2002; Nathisuwan and Talbert 2002) and as peptide vaccines (Celis 2002). The current peptide production technique commonly used is solid-state synthesis; yet this can be hindered by high cost and relatively low yields, as well as the inability to accurately produce peptides of lengths over ~50 residues with acceptable yields. Furthermore, the ability to introduce isotopic labels (13C, 15N, 2H) within polypeptides by solid-state methodology for NMR studies is not a viable option, because the costs involved quickly escalate. The ability to recombinantly produce peptides is an alternative to solid-state synthesis, as cell culture expression can yield high production at relatively low cost, with easy incorporation of isotopic labels. Unfortunately, expression of peptides in vivo has met with limited success because peptides are relatively poorly expressed in cell culture, attributed to an unstructured state in solution that is susceptible to cellular proteases, as well as to solubility concerns of the expressed peptide. Peptide production may also produce highly toxic effects on cells during expression (Majerle et al. 2000).
One solution to high-yield recombinant peptide production is the use of a fusion protein construct, which helps in peptide stability and solubility following expression. Fusion proteins offer protection of expressed peptides from cellular proteases, incorporation of various affinity tags for ease in fusion protein purification, and introduction of proteolytic and/or chemical cleavage sites for generation of subsequent peptide fragments. Several groups have reported success with various fusion protein constructs, with many using a hydrophobic fusion protein construct, which produces a construct that is sequestered within inclusion bodies (Jones et al. 2000; Majerle et al. 2000; Sharon et al. 2002). However, reconstitution of inclusion body proteins provides additional work and use of chemical denaturants for subsequent peptide production.
In this study, we report the production of six different fusion protein constructs using the B1 immunoglobulin binding domain of streptococcal protein G (Gronenborn et al. 1991), termed GEV-1 vector (Gronenborn and Clore 1996; Huth et al. 1997; Lindhout et al. 2002), a 56-amino acid soluble globular domain combined with a poly histidine tag affinity purification protocol. The advantage of the GB-1 fusion approach over other previous techniques is the production of a soluble fusion protein construct, with high expression yields and ease of purification. The ability of GB-1 to express multiple differing peptide fragments of various composition and length is demonstrated in this study. We have cloned, expressed, and purified six different peptides. These include cIp-RR-20, a 20-residue peptide of human cardiac troponin I (cTnI128147) that plays a role in regulation of heart muscle contractility (Campbell et al. 1992; Tripet et al. 1997; Li et al. 2000), as well as two mutants of cIp-RR-20 (cIp-RG-20 and cIp-GR-20) that yield altered activities, with cIp-GR-20 being associated with the heart disease familial hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (Redwood et al. 1999; Hernandez et al. 2001). We have also produced and purified TRTK-12, a 12-residue homology peptide of the actin capping protein (CapZ
1265276), which has been shown to interact with the calcium-binding protein S-100 (Ivanenkov et al. 1995); FLQS-26, a 26-residue peptide from human sodium proton exchanger isoform 1 (NHE1155179), which constitutes a predicted hydrophobic transmembrane helix (Counillon et al. 1997; Wakabayashi et al. 2000); and EDQL-26, a 26-residue peptide of cardiac troponin T (cTnT226251), which makes a helical coiled-coil interaction with cardiac troponin I (Pearlstone and Smillie 1985). Using synthetic DNA oligonucleotides to code for the peptides of interest, as well as the introduction of methionine residues for subsequent CNBr cleavage following fusion protein purification, we have demonstrated a system that can be implemented, cloned, expressed, and purified in as little as 2 wk with high yields and minimal effort. Moreover, we demonstrate the ability of this system to produce isotopic labeling of peptides for NMR studies and to provide a strong prospect for future production of peptides for various industrial, pharmaceutical, and general research applications.
| Results and Discussion |
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Cleavage of the GB-1 fusion constructs was performed by CNBr cleavage, which under acidic conditions (0.1 N HCl) will cleave C terminal to all methionine residues, chemically modifying all methionine residues into homoserine residues. Monitoring of
-CH3 groups of the fusion protein GB-1_RR-20_His by 1H NMR spectroscopy (Fig. 3
) indicates that cleavage is quantitative after 12 h at room temperature as peak intensity of the
-CH3 groups diminishes over time.
-CH3 groups of methionine residues will resonant as a sharp singlet within the 1H-NMR spectrum around 2.0 ppm, as no J couplings of the methyl group protons to neighboring side-chain CH2 groups are observed, because of a separation by a sulfur atom within the side chain. Three singlets are expected for GB-1_RR-20_His because three methionine residues are present within the construct (Fig. 1A
), yet only two peaks are observed because there is peak overlap of two
-CH3 groups at 2.095 ppm. The amide bond linkage between Met-Thr residues has been previously reported to be inefficient under standard CNBr cleavage conditions, yet we have proven >99% cleavage for fusion constructs GB-1_cIp-RR-20_His, GB-1_cIp-RG-20_His, GB-1_cIp-GR-20_His, and GB-1_TRTK-12_His, all of which contain a MetThr cleavage site. Following cleavage by CNBr, HPLC purification and verification by MALDI-TOF mass spectroscopy of all eluted peaks indicated that pure peptide was obtained with a C-terminal homoserine residue present for all constructs as a consequence of CNBr cleavage. For production of peptides containing methionine residues, CNBr cleavage is not an option and thus the cleavage sites must be altered to proteolytic cleavage sites (i.e., thrombin) or other chemical cleavage sites for yield of peptide constructs. For this study, CNBr was chosen because of its speed and reproducible results for yielding pure peptide constructs. Expression of GB-1 fusion constructs resulted in ~20 mg/15 mg of pure peptide per liter of 2xYT/minimal media.
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| Materials and methods |
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Expression of GB-1 fusion proteins
BL21 DE3 (pLysS) cells containing each respective GB-1 fusion vector were grown in 50 mL 2xYT containing 100 µg/mL ampicillin overnight at 37°C with shaking. One-liter cultures of 2xYT containing 100 µg/mL ampicillin were inoculated with 5 mL of overnight culture of each fusion protein construct, grown to OD600 0.8 at 37°C with shaking, and induced with 1 mM IPTG for 4 h. To determine the extent of soluble expression, we pelleted each fusion protein construct, broke it in a French pressure cell, cleared it by centrifugation, and analyzed the supernatant on an 8%22% gradient SDS-PAGE gel (Biorad).
Labeling of GB-1 fusion protein cIp-RR-20
For both 15N and 13C labeling of fusion proteins, starter cultures were grown in 50 mL 2xYT containing 100 µg/mL ampicillin at 37°C until OD600 0.8 was reached. For 15N labeling of fusion proteins, 1-L cultures of M9 minimal media containing 50 mL of 15N-enriched media (Cambridge Isotope Laboratories) and 1.1 g 15N-(NH4)2SO4 as the sole nitrogen sources, and 10 g of glucose, were inoculated with 5 mL of starter culture, grown to OD600 0.8 at 37°C, inoculated with 1 mM IPTG, and allowed to induce for 4 h prior to cell harvesting. For 13C/15N labeling of fusion proteins, 1-L cultures of M9 minimal media were used, containing 50 mL of 13C/15N-enriched media (Cambridge Isotope Laboratories), 1.1 g 15N-(NH4)2SO4, and 2.5 g of 13C-glucose.
Purification of GB-1 fusion proteins
BL21 DE3 (pLysS) cells that expressed respective fusion proteins were pelleted, resuspended in 50 mM Tris buffer (pH 8.0), broken in a French pressure cell, centrifuged, and passed through a 0.22-µm filter to remove all insoluble cellular debris. Supernatant was loaded onto a 25-mL column of fast-flow chelating Sepharose, previously charged with 50 mM NiSO4, and equilibrated in 5 mM imidazole, 500 mM NaCl, and 20 mM TrisHCl (pH 7.9). The column was then washed with 40 mM imidazole, 500 mM NaCl, and 10 mM TrisHCl (pH 7.9), followed by fusion protein elution with 100 mM EDTA, 500 mM NaCl, and 20 mM TrisHCl (pH 7.9). Fusion protein elutant was lyophilized to dryness, desalted on a G25 Sephadex column (10mM NH4HCO3 at pH 8.0), and lyophilized to dryness.
CNBr cleavage of GB-1 fusion proteins and purification of peptides
GB-1 fusion proteins were dissolved in 0.1 N HCl (5 mg/mL), to which solid CNBr was added to a final molar concentration of 100:1, and left in the dark at room temperature for 24 h. Solutions were then diluted 10-fold with distilled deionized H2O (ddH2O) and lyophilized to dryness. Samples were subjected to a reverse-phase HPLC column, and individual peaks were collected with MWs verified by MALDI-TOF mass spectroscopy. Peaks containing pure peptide were pooled and twice lyophilized to dryness to remove all organic solvents.
NMR spectroscopy
NMR experiments were performed on a Varian INOVA 500-MHz NMR spectrometer equipped with a triple resonance probe and Z-axis pulsed field gradients. All recorded spectra were referenced to an external DSS standard. Five-point-three mg of 1H-GB-1_cIp-RR-20_His was dissolved in 525 µL of 0.1 N HCl with 25 µL of 2H2O, to which a 100-fold excess of CNBr was added directly to the NMR tube. 1-dimensional 1H scans were taken at 15-min intervals at 25°C for 24 h. All one-dimensional spectra were processed and analyzed using vnmr (Varian associates). Two and a half mg of 15N-cIp-RR-20 and 3.1 mg of 15N/13C-cIp-RR-20 were dissolved separately into 500 µL NMR buffer (100 mM KCl, 10 mM imidazole, 0.015% NaN3 at pH 6.7), with all two-dimensional spectra processed with nmrPipe (Delaglio et al. 1995) and analyzed with the program nmrView (Johnson and Blevins 1994). Both {1H, 15N}-HSQC spectra (Kay et al. 1992) and {1H, 13C}-HSQC spectra (Neri et al. 1989) were acquired with 16 transients and 128 increments, zero filled, and the number of points doubled with linear prediction during spectral processing.
| Acknowledgments |
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Supported by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) and the Heart and Stroke Foundation of Canada. D.A.L. is supported by an Alberta Heritage Foundation for Medical Research Studentship.
The publication costs of this article were defrayed in part by payment of page charges. This article must therefore be hereby marked "advertisement" in accordance with 18 USC section 1734 solely to indicate this fact.
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