Full-length versus truncated α-factor secretory signal sequences for expression of recombinant human insulin precursor in yeast Pichia pastoris: a comparison.

Background: Human insulin was the first FDA-approved biopharmaceutical drug produced through recombinant DNA technology. The previous studies successfully expressed recombinant human insulin precursors (HIP) in Pichia pastoris truncated and full-length α-factor recombinant clones. The matting α-factor (Matα), a signal secretion, direct the HIP protein into the culture media. This study aimed to compare the HIP expression from full-length and truncated α-factor secretory signals clones that grown in two types of media, buffered methanol complex medium (BMMY) and methanol basal salt medium (BSMM).

Results: ImageJ analysis of the HIP's SDS-PAGE shows that the average HIP expression level of the recombinant P. pastoris truncated α-factor clone (CL4) was significantly higher compared to the full-length (HF7) when expressed in both media. Western blot analysis showed that the expressed protein was the HIP. The α-factor protein structure was predicted using the AlphaFold and visualized using UCSF ChimeraX to confirm the secretion ability for both clones.

Conclusions: CL4 clone, which utilized a truncated α-factor in the P. pastoris HIP expression cassette, significantly expressed HIP 8.97 times (in BMMY) and 1.17 times (in BSMM) higher than HF7 clone, which used a full-length α-factor secretory signal. This research confirmed that deletion of some regions of the secretory signal sequence significantly improved the efficiency of HIP protein expression in P. pastoris.