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Fusion Tag Design Influences Soluble Recombinant Protein Production in Escherichia coli

ABSTRACT: Fusion protein technologies to facilitate soluble expression, detection, or subsequent affinity purification in Escherichia coli are widely used but may also be associated with negative consequences. Although commonly employed solubility tags have a positive influence on titers, their large molecular mass inherently results in stochiometric losses of product yield. Furthermore, the introduction of affinity tags, especially the polyhistidine tag, has been associated with undesirable changes in expression levels. Fusion tags are also known to influence the functionality of the protein of interest due to conformational changes. Therefore, particularly for biopharmaceutical applications, the removal of the fusion tag is a requirement to ensure the safety and efficacy of the therapeutic protein. The design of suitable fusion tags enabling the efficient manufacturing of the recombinant protein remains a challenge. Here, we evaluated several N-terminal fusion tag combinations and their influence on product titer and cell growth to find an ideal design for a generic fusion tag. For enhancing soluble expression, a negatively charged peptide tag derived from the T7 bacteriophage was combined with affinity tags and a caspase-2 cleavage site applicable for CASPase-based fusiON (CASPON) platform technology. The effects of each combinatorial tag element were investigated in an integrated manner using human fibroblast growth factor 2 as a model protein in fed-batch lab-scale bioreactor cultivations. To confirm the generic applicability for manufacturing, seven additional pharmaceutically relevant proteins were produced using the best performing tag of this study, named CASPON-tag, and tag removal was demonstrated.

SUBMITTER: Koppl C

PROVIDER: S-EPMC9321918 | biostudies-literature |

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Project description:The ability to control the synthesis of products in the absence of cell division remains an attractive alternative for the optimization of microbial processes. If this could be achieved, it would dramatically expand the productivity of many microbial processes by increasing product synthesis in the absence of an increase in cell mass. In the present work we have looked at the factors involved in the design of a host where the fluxes would be channeled towards product formation rather than biomass synthesis. To identify the genes responsible for diverting the metabolic flux specifically towards product formation we have used for this study is quiescent-cell (Q-cell) expression system, in which a plasmid-encoded protein is expressed in nongrowing but metabolically active cells. These cells channel the metabolic flux towards recombinant protein production and therefore the specific product yield per unit biomass is significantly higher. Indole which is previously known to be a signalling molecule is here used as an inducer of Quiescence. E.coli L-Asparaginase is used as a model protein in this work. Fed batch cultures were carried out in Sartorius BIOSTAT B plus 5liter bioreactor. The data acquisition was done with the MFCS Shell software (version) provided with the bioreactor. The Sartorius BIOSTAT B plus had proportional integral derivative-based control loops for temperature, pH, antifoam, and dissolved-oxygen (DO) regulation. The culture was grown in a batch mode till 10-12 OD (µ=0.5) and then the feed was attached. In the next hour the culture was induced for product formation with 1M IPTG. In case of Q culture quiescence was induced with 0.5M Indole just 5min after induction with IPTG. Post induction every hour samples were collected and frozen with liquid nitrogen and stored at -80ºC for further analytical use. Total RNA extraction, RNA quality control (Agilent BioAnalyser), total RNA labeling, microarray hybridization and scanning were performed according to the Affymetrix GeneChip Expression analysis .

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Fusion Tag Design Influences Soluble Recombinant Protein Production in Escherichia coli

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