Brassica rapa hairy root based expression system leads to the production of highly homogenous and reproducible profiles of recombinant human alpha-L-iduronidase.

The Brassica rapa hairy root based expression platform, a turnip hairy root based expression system, is able to produce human complex glycoproteins such as the alpha-L-iduronidase (IDUA) with an activity similar to the one produced by Chinese Hamster Ovary (CHO) cells. In this article, a particular attention has been paid to the N- and O-glycosylation that characterize the alpha-L-iduronidase produced using this hairy root based system. This analysis showed that the recombinant protein is characterized by highly homogeneous post translational profiles enabling a strong batch to batch reproducibility. Indeed, on each of the 6 N-glycosylation sites of the IDUA, a single N-glycan composed of a core Man3 GlcNAc2 carrying one beta(1,2)-xylose and one alpha(1,3)-fucose epitope (M3XFGN2) was identified, highlighting the high homogeneity of the production system. Hydroxylation of proline residues and arabinosylation were identified during O-glycosylation analysis, still with a remarkable reproducibility. This platform is thus positioned as an effective and consistent expression system for the production of human complex therapeutic proteins.

Unprecedented rates and efficiencies revealed for new natural split inteins from metagenomic sources.

Inteins excise themselves out of precursor proteins by the protein splicing reaction and have emerged as valuable protein engineering tools in numerous and diverse biotechnological applications. Split inteins have recently attracted particular interest because of the opportunities associated with generating a protein from two separate polypeptides and with trans-cleavage applications made possible by split intein mutants. However, natural split inteins are rare and differ greatly in their usefulness with regard to the achievable rates and yields. Here we report the first functional characterization of new split inteins previously identified by bioinformatics from metagenomic sources. The N- and C-terminal fragments of the four inteins gp41-1, gp41-8, NrdJ-1, and IMPDH-1 were prepared as fusion constructs with model proteins. Upon incubation of complementary pairs, we observed trans-splicing reactions with unprecedented rates and yields for all four inteins. Furthermore, no side reactions were detectable, and the precursor constructs were consumed virtually quantitatively. The rate for the gp41-1 intein, the most active intein on all accounts, was k = 1.8 ± 0.5 × 10(-1) s(-1), which is ∼10-fold faster than the rate reported for the Npu DnaE intein and gives rise to completed reactions within 20-30 s. No cross-reactivity in exogenous combinations was observed. Using C1A mutants, all inteins were efficient in the C-terminal cleavage reaction, albeit at lower rates. C-terminal cleavage could be performed under a wide range of reaction conditions and also in the absence of native extein residues flanking the intein. Thus, these inteins hold great potential for splicing and cleavage applications.

Protein and proteome phosphorylation stoichiometry analysis by element mass spectrometry.

Protein phosphorylation stoichiometry was assessed by two analytical strategies. Both are based on element mass spectrometry (ICPMS, inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry) and simultaneous monitoring of (31)P and (34)S. One strategy employs a combination of 1D gel electrophoresis, in-gel digestion, and final microLC-ICPMS analysis (microLC = capillary liquid chromatography). The other strategy uses the combination of 1D gel electrophoresis, protein blotting, and imLA-ICPMS (imLA = imaging laser ablation). The two methods were evaluated with standard phosphoproteins and were applied to the analysis of the cytoplasmatic proteome of bacterial cells (Corynebacterium glutamicum) and eukaryotic cells (Mus musculus). The eukaryotic proteome was found to exhibit a significantly higher phosphorylation degree (approximately 0.8 mol of P/mol of protein) compared to the bacterial proteome (approximately 0.01 mol of P/mol of protein). Both analytical strategies revealed consistent quantitative results, with the microLC-ICPMS approach providing the higher sensitivity. In summary, two ICPMS-based methods for quantitative estimation of the phosphorylation degree of a cellular proteome are presented which access the native proteome state and do not require any type of label introduction or derivatization.