ABSTRACT
Objective To construct a novel prokaryotic expression system, in which cross-reacting material 197 (CRM197) can be expressed in a soluble form in Escherichia coli(E. coli) cytoplasm and purified simply by one-step Ni-NTA affinity purification. Methods The CRM197 coding sequence was cloned into the prokaryotic expres-sion vector pET-32a(+) as an fusion protein with Trx tag,the HRV3C(human rhinovirus 3C) protease recognition sequence and 6 histidine sequence were added to the N-terminal of CRM197.HRV3C protease gene was cloned into another prokaryotic expression plasmid pGArasd. Both plasmids were co-transformed into E. coli Origami B (DE3) and induced mildly at 15℃. CRM197 recombinant protein was purified by Ni-NTA affinity matrix. Results The free soluble His-tagged CRM197 protein was released by cleavage of the accompanying expressed HRV3C protease after the CRM197 fusion protein was expressed. After one-step affinity purification recombinant CRM197 protein with a purity of almost 95% was obtained. Outcoming of the final preparation incubated with DNA indicated the pu-rified CRM197 recombinant protein has deoxyribonuclease activity. Conclusions By constructing a novel double-plasmid auto-cleavage prokaryotic expression system in this study, the production process of obtaining soluble CRM197 recombinant protein in E. coli has been simplified,with expression and purification efficiency improved and the production cost reduced.
ABSTRACT
CRM197 (cross-reacting material 197), a non-toxic mutant of diphtheria toxin, has wide application potential in biopharmaceuticals. However, it is difficult to express CRM197 in bacteria other than Corynebacterium diphtheriae. Here we proposed a new alternative method to produce soluble CRM197 without label in Escherichia coli. In particular, a synthetic gene coding for CRM197, optimized for E. coli codon usage, was cloned in the pET32a (+) vector. Accordingly, the over-expression of the protein was simply induced with IPTG in E. coli BL21 (DE3). The target protein was soluble and accounted for about 40% of the total protein in the supernatant. Following an ultrasonic cytolysis step, the recombinant protein was purified by anion exchange, affinity and desalting chromatography and the purity of the final preparation reached 95%. Cytotoxicity tests showed that the IC₅₀ value of CRM197 was 2.1×10⁷ times the IC₅₀ value of diphtheria toxin, and 9.6 times the IC50 value of diphtheria toxoid, telling that the target protein is safe and non-toxic. Subsequently, we found that both the high dose (20 μg) and the low dose (2 μg) of CRM197 were equally efficient in inducing an immune response against diphtheria toxiod in mice, and the antibodies titer of mice after three immunizations with low dose could reach 1:409 600. In conclusion, our findings provide a highly efficient strategy for the rapid production and purification of unlabeled and soluble recombinant CRM197 in E. coli, with good immunogenicity and safety.