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A novel expression system of domain I of human beta2 glycoprotein I in Escherichia coli

Ioannou, Y; Giles, I; Lambrianides, A; Richardson, C; Pearl, LH; Latchman, DS; Isenberg, DA; (2006) A novel expression system of domain I of human beta2 glycoprotein I in Escherichia coli. BMC Biotechnology , 6 , Article 8. 10.1186/1472-6750-6-8. Green open access

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Abstract

Background: The antiphospholipid syndrome (APS), characterised by recurrent miscarriage and thrombosis, is a significant cause of morbidity and mortality. Domain I (DI) of human beta 2 glycoprotein I (beta(2)GPI) is thought to contain crucial antibody binding epitopes for antiphospholipid antibodies (aPL), which are critical to the pathogenesis of APS. Expressing this protein in bacteria could facilitate studies investigating how this molecule interacts with aPL.Methods: Using a computer programme called Juniper, sequentially overlapping primers were designed to be used in a recursive polymerase chain reaction (PCR) to produce a synthetic DI gene. Specifically Juniper incorporates 'major' codons preferred by bacteria altering 41 codons out of 61. This was cloned into the expression plasmid pET(26b) and expressed in BL21(DE3) Escherichia coli ( E. coli). By virtue of a pelB leader sequence, periplasmic localisation of DI aided disulphide bond formation and toxicity was addressed by tightly regulating expression through the high stringency T7lac promoter.Results: Purified, soluble his-tagged DI in yields of 750 mu g/L bacterial culture was obtained and confirmed on Western blot. Expression using the native human cDNA sequence of DI in the same construct under identical conditions yielded significantly less DI compared to the recombinant optimised sequence. This constitutes the first description of prokaryotic expression of soluble DI of beta(2)GPI. Binding to murine monoclonal antibodies that recognise conformationally restricted epitopes on the surface of DI and pathogenic human monoclonal IgG aPL was confirmed by direct and indirect immunoassay. Recombinant DI also bound a series of 21 polyclonal IgG samples derived from patients with APS.Conclusion: By producing a synthetic gene globally optimised for expression in E. coli, tightly regulating expression and utilising periplasmic product translocation, efficient, soluble E. coli expression of the eukaryotic protein DI of beta(2)GPI is possible. This novel platform of expression utilising pan-gene prokaryote codon optimisation for DI production will aid future antigenic studies. Furthermore if DI or peptide derivatives of DI are eventually used in the therapeutic setting either as toleragen or as a competitive inhibitor of pathogenic aPL, then an E. coli production system may aid cost-effective production.

Type: Article
Title: A novel expression system of domain I of human beta2 glycoprotein I in Escherichia coli
Open access status: An open access version is available from UCL Discovery
DOI: 10.1186/1472-6750-6-8
Publisher version: http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1472-6750-6-8
Language: English
Additional information: © 2006 Ioannou et al; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Keywords: High-level expression, bacteriophage-t7 rna-polymerase, antiphospholipid syndrome, anticardiolipin antibodies, gene, beta(2)-glycoprotein-i, autoantibodies, thrombosis, cardiolipin, proteins
UCL classification: UCL
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Medical Sciences
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Medical Sciences > Div of Medicine
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Medical Sciences > Div of Medicine > Inflammation
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Population Health Sciences > UCL GOS Institute of Child Health
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Population Health Sciences > UCL GOS Institute of Child Health > ICH - Directors Office
URI: https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/135293
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