Rosa Elena Cárdenas-Guerra , Octavio Montes-Flores , Edgar Ezequiel Nava-Pintor , Gerardo Reséndiz-Cardiel , Claudia Ivonne Flores-Pucheta , Yasmín Irene Rodríguez-Gavaldón , Rossana Arroyo , Maria Elena Bottazzi , Peter J. Hotez , Jaime Ortega-López
{"title":"Chagasin from Trypanosoma cruzi as a molecular scaffold to express epitopes of TSA-1 as soluble recombinant chimeras","authors":"Rosa Elena Cárdenas-Guerra , Octavio Montes-Flores , Edgar Ezequiel Nava-Pintor , Gerardo Reséndiz-Cardiel , Claudia Ivonne Flores-Pucheta , Yasmín Irene Rodríguez-Gavaldón , Rossana Arroyo , Maria Elena Bottazzi , Peter J. Hotez , Jaime Ortega-López","doi":"10.1016/j.pep.2024.106458","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<div><p><em>Trypanosoma cruzi</em> is the causative agent of Chagas disease, a global public health problem. New therapeutic drugs and biologics are needed. The TSA-1 recombinant protein of <em>T. cruzi</em> is one such promising antigen for developing a therapeutic vaccine. However, it is overexpressed in <em>E. coli</em> as inclusion bodies, requiring an additional refolding step. As an alternative, in this study, we propose the endogenous cysteine protease inhibitor chagasin as a molecular scaffold to generate chimeric proteins. These proteins will contain combinations of two of the five conserved epitopes (E1 to E5) of TSA-1 in the L4 and L6 chagasin loops. Twenty chimeras (Q1-Q20) were designed, and their solubility was predicted using bioinformatics tools. Nine chimeras with different degrees of solubility were selected and expressed in <em>E. coli</em> BL21 (DE3). Western blot assays with anti-6x-His and anti-chagasin antibodies confirmed the expression of soluble recombinant chimeras. Both theoretically and experimentally, the Q12 (E5-E3) chimera was the most soluble, and the Q20 (E4-E5) the most insoluble protein. Q4 (E5-E1) and Q8 (E5-E2) chimeras were classified as proteins with medium solubility that exhibited the highest yield in the soluble fraction. Notably, Q4 has a yield of 239 mg/L, well above the yield of recombinant chagasin (16.5 mg/L) expressed in a soluble form. The expression of the Q4 chimera was scaled up to a 7 L fermenter obtaining a yield of 490 mg/L. These data show that chagasin can serve as a molecular scaffold for the expression of TSA-1 epitopes in the form of soluble chimeras.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":20757,"journal":{"name":"Protein expression and purification","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.4000,"publicationDate":"2024-02-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Protein expression and purification","FirstCategoryId":"99","ListUrlMain":"https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1046592824000305","RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"生物学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q4","JCRName":"BIOCHEMICAL RESEARCH METHODS","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
Trypanosoma cruzi is the causative agent of Chagas disease, a global public health problem. New therapeutic drugs and biologics are needed. The TSA-1 recombinant protein of T. cruzi is one such promising antigen for developing a therapeutic vaccine. However, it is overexpressed in E. coli as inclusion bodies, requiring an additional refolding step. As an alternative, in this study, we propose the endogenous cysteine protease inhibitor chagasin as a molecular scaffold to generate chimeric proteins. These proteins will contain combinations of two of the five conserved epitopes (E1 to E5) of TSA-1 in the L4 and L6 chagasin loops. Twenty chimeras (Q1-Q20) were designed, and their solubility was predicted using bioinformatics tools. Nine chimeras with different degrees of solubility were selected and expressed in E. coli BL21 (DE3). Western blot assays with anti-6x-His and anti-chagasin antibodies confirmed the expression of soluble recombinant chimeras. Both theoretically and experimentally, the Q12 (E5-E3) chimera was the most soluble, and the Q20 (E4-E5) the most insoluble protein. Q4 (E5-E1) and Q8 (E5-E2) chimeras were classified as proteins with medium solubility that exhibited the highest yield in the soluble fraction. Notably, Q4 has a yield of 239 mg/L, well above the yield of recombinant chagasin (16.5 mg/L) expressed in a soluble form. The expression of the Q4 chimera was scaled up to a 7 L fermenter obtaining a yield of 490 mg/L. These data show that chagasin can serve as a molecular scaffold for the expression of TSA-1 epitopes in the form of soluble chimeras.
期刊介绍:
Protein Expression and Purification is an international journal providing a forum for the dissemination of new information on protein expression, extraction, purification, characterization, and/or applications using conventional biochemical and/or modern molecular biological approaches and methods, which are of broad interest to the field. The journal does not typically publish repetitive examples of protein expression and purification involving standard, well-established, methods. However, exceptions might include studies on important and/or difficult to express and/or purify proteins and/or studies that include extensive protein characterization, which provide new, previously unpublished information.