A fluorescence-based array screen for transglutaminase substrates.

Transglutaminases (EC 2.3.2.13) form an enzyme family that catalyzes the formation of isopeptide bonds between the γ-carboxamide group of glutamine and the ε-amine group of lysine residues of peptides and proteins. Other primary amines can be accepted in place of lysine. Because of their important physiological and pathophysiological functions, transglutaminases have been studied for 60 years. However, the substrate preferences of this enzyme class remain largely elusive. In this study, we used focused combinatorial libraries of 400 peptides to investigate the influence of the amino acids adjacent to the glutamine and lysine residues on the catalysis of isopeptide bond formation by microbial transglutaminase. Using the peptide microarray technology we found a strong positive influence of hydrophobic and basic amino acids, especially arginine, tyrosine, and leucine. Several tripeptide substrates were synthesized, and enzymatic kinetic parameters were determined both by microarray analysis and in solution.

Transglutamination allows production and characterization of native-sized ELPylated spider silk proteins from transgenic plants.

In the last two decades it was shown that plants have a great potential for production of specific heterologous proteins. But high cost and inefficient downstream processing are a main technical bottleneck for the broader use of plant-based production technology especially for protein-based products, for technical use as fibres or biodegradable plastics and also for medical applications. High-performance fibres from recombinant spider silks are, therefore, a prominent example. Spiders developed rather different silk materials that are based on proteins. These spider silks show excellent properties in terms of elasticity and toughness. Natural spider silk proteins have a very high molecular weight, and it is precisely this property which is thought to give them their strength. Transgenic plants were generated to produce ELPylated recombinant spider silk derivatives. These fusion proteins were purified by Inverse Transition Cycling (ITC) and enzymatically multimerized with transglutaminase in vitro. Layers produced by casting monomers and multimers were characterized using atomic force microscopy (AFM) and AFM-based nanoindentation. The layered multimers formed by mixing lysine- and glutamine-tagged monomers were associated with the highest elastic penetration modulus.

Investigations on the activation of recombinant microbial pro-transglutaminase: in contrast to proteinase K, dispase removes the histidine-tag.

In order to produce recombinant microbial transglutaminase (rMTG) which is free of the activating protease, dispase was used to activate the pro-rMTG followed by immobilized metal affinity chromatography (IMAC). As shown by MALDI-MS, the dispase does not only cleave the pro-sequence, but unfortunately also cleaves within the C-terminal histidine-tag. Hence, the active rMTG cannot properly bind to the IMAC material. As an alternative, proteinase K was investigated. This protease was successfully applied for the activation of purified pro-rMTG either as free or immobilized enzyme and the free enzyme was also applicable directly in the crude cell extract of E. coli. Thus, it enables a simple two-step activation/purification procedure resulting in protease-free and almost pure transglutaminase preparations. The protocol has been successfully applied to both, wild-type transglutaminase of Streptomyces mobaraensis as well as to the highly active variant S2P. Proteinase K activates the pro-rMTG without unwanted degradation of the histidine-tag. It turned out to be very important to inhibit proteinase K activity, e.g., by PMSF, prior to protein separation by SDS-PAGE.

Increased thermostability of microbial transglutaminase by combination of several hot spots evolved by random and saturation mutagenesis.

The thermostability of microbial transglutaminase (MTG) of Streptomyces mobaraensis was further improved by saturation mutagenesis and DNA-shuffling. High-throughput screening was used to identify clones with increased thermostability at 55°C. Saturation mutagenesis was performed at seven "hot spots", previously evolved by random mutagenesis. Mutations at four positions (2, 23, 269, and 294) led to higher thermostability. The variants with single amino acid exchanges comprising the highest thermostabilities were combined by DNA-shuffling. A library of 1,500 clones was screened and variants showing the highest ratio of activities after incubation for 30 min at 55°C relative to a control at 37°C were selected. 116 mutants of this library showed an increased thermostability and 2 clones per deep well plate were sequenced (35 clones). 13 clones showed only the desired sites without additional point mutations and eight variants were purified and characterized. The most thermostable mutant (triple mutant S23V-Y24N-K294L) exhibited a 12-fold higher half-life at 60°C and a 10-fold higher half-life at 50°C compared to the unmodified recombinant wild-type enzyme. From the characterization of different triple mutants differing only in one amino acid residue, it can be concluded that position 294 is especially important for thermostabilization. The simultaneous exchange of amino acids at sites 23, 24, 269 and 289 resulted in a MTG-variant with nearly twofold higher specific activity and a temperature optimum of 55°C. A triple mutant with amino acid substitutions at sites 2, 289 and 294 exhibits a temperature optimum of 60°C, which is 10°C higher than that of the wild-type enzyme.

Enzymatically catalyzed conjugation of a biodegradable polymer to proteins and small molecules using microbial transglutaminase.

Hydroxyethyl starch (HES) is a water-soluble, biodegradable derivative of starch that is widely used in biomedicine as a plasma volume expander. Due to its favorable properties, HES is currently being investigated at the industrial and academic levels as a biodegradable polymer substitute for polyethylene glycol. To date, only chemical methods have been suggested for HESylation; unfortunately, however, these may have negative effects on protein stability. To address this issue, we have developed an enzymatic method for protein HESylation using recombinant microbial transglutaminase (rMTG). rMTG enzyme is able to catalyze the replacement of the amide ammonia at the γ-position in glutamine residues (acyl donors) with a variety of primary amines (acyl acceptors), including the amino group of lysine (Lys). To convert HES into a suitable substrate for rMTG, the polymer was derivatized with either N-carbobenzyloxy glutaminyl glycine (Z-QG) or hexamethylenediamine to act as an acyl donor or acyl acceptor, respectively. Using SDS-PAGE, it was possible to show that the modified HES successfully coupled to test compounds, proving that it is accepted as a substrate by rMTG. Overall, the enzymatic approach described in this chapter provides a facile route to produce biodegradable polymer-drug and polymer-protein conjugates under relatively mild reaction conditions.

Enzymatically catalyzed HES conjugation using microbial transglutaminase: Proof of feasibility.

Polymer-drug and polymer-protein conjugates are promising candidates for the delivery of therapeutic agents. PEGylation, using poly(ethylene glycol) for the conjugation, is now the gold standard in this field, and some PEGylated proteins have successfully reached the market. Hydroxyethyl starch (HES) is a water-soluble, biodegradable derivative of starch that is currently being investigated as a substitute for PEG. So far, only chemical methods have been suggested for HES conjugation; however, these may have detrimental effects on proteins. Here, we report an enzymatic method for HES conjugation using a recombinant microbial transglutaminase (rMTG). The latter catalyzes the acyl transfer between the gamma-carboxamide group of a glutaminyl residue (acyl donors) and a variety of primary amines (acyl acceptors), including the amino group of lysine. HES was modified with N-carbobenzyloxy glutaminyl glycine (Z-QG) and hexamethylene diamine (HMDA) to act as acyl donor and acyl acceptor, respectively. Using (1)H NMR, the degree of modification with Z-QG and HMDA was found to be 4.6 and 3.9 mol%, respectively. Using SDS-PAGE, it was possible to show that the modified HES successfully coupled to test compounds, proving that it is accepted as a substrate by rMTG. Finally, the process described in this study is a simple, mild approach to produce fully biodegradable polymer-drug and polymer-protein conjugates.

Random mutagenesis of a recombinant microbial transglutaminase for the generation of thermostable and heat-sensitive variants.

Recombinant microbial transglutaminase (rMTG), an enzyme useful for the cross-linking or the posttranslational modification of (therapeutic) proteins, was optimized by random mutagenesis for the first time. A screening method was developed which, in addition to state-of-the-art procedures, includes a proteolytic activation step of the expressed soluble pro-enzyme. The library of 5,500 clones was screened for variants with increased thermostability and heat-sensitivity, respectively. Mutant enzymes were overproduced, isolated and characterized. After just one round of mutagenesis, nine variants with a single amino acid exchange showed a remarkably increased thermostability at 60 degrees C. The exchange of a serine residue close to the N-terminus against proline resulted in an rMTG mutant (S2P) with 270% increased half-life. Seven variants exhibited an increased heat-sensitivity at 60 degrees C of which one mutant (G25S) retained its specific activity between 10 and 40 degrees C. The mutations responsible for the increased thermostability and the heat-sensitivity were identified and assigned to the three-dimensional (3D) structure. All single point mutations related to changed thermal properties of rMTG are located in the N-terminal domain (i.e. the left side wall of the active site cleft of the front view of the MTG as defined by the literature [Kashiwagi, T., Yokoyama, K., Ishikawa, K., Ono, K., Ejima, D., Matsui, H., Suzuki, E., 2002. Crystal structure of microbial transglutaminase from Streptoverticillium mobaraense. J. Biol. Chem. 277, 44252-44260] showing the importance of this part of the protein.

Cloning, expression, purification, and characterization of a designer protein with repetitive sequences.

An artificial protein containing alternating hydrophilic-hydrophobic blocks of amino acids was designed in order to mimic the structure of synthetic multiblock copolymers. The hydrophobic block consisted of the six amino acids Ala Ile Leu Leu Ile Ile (AILLII) and the hydrophilic block of the eight amino acids Thr Ser Glu Asp Asp Asn Asn Gln (TSEDDNNQ). The coding DNA sequence of the cluster was inserted into an commercial pET 30a(+) vector using a two step strategy. The expression of the artificial protein in Escherichia coli was optimized using a temperature shift strategy. Only at cultivation temperature of 24 degrees C after induction expression was observed, whereas at 30 and 37 degrees C no target protein could be detected. Cells obtained from a 15L bioreactor cultivation of E. coli were disintegrated by mechanical methods. Interestingly, glass bead milling and high pressure homogenization resulted in a different solubility of the target protein. The further purification was carried out by affinity chromatography using the soluble homogenized protein. Extreme conditions (6M urea, 0.5M NaCl) were applied in order to prevent aggregation to insoluble particles. The designer protein showed an extremely high tendency to form dimers or trimers caused by intermolecular interactions which were even not broken under the conditions of SDS-polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis, rendering the behavior during purification different from proteins usually found in nature. The protein preparation was not completely pure according to SDS-PAGE stained by Coomassie blue or silver. In MALDI-TOF-MS, nano-ESI qTOF-MS of the entire protein preparation and nano-ESI-MS after digestion by trypsin and chymotrypsin impurities were not detectable.