Improved yield and stability of L49-sFv-beta-lactamase, a single-chain antibody fusion protein for anticancer prodrug activation, by protein engineering.

The L49 single-chain Fv fused to beta-lactamase (L49-sFv-bL) combined with the prodrug C-Mel is an effective anticancer agent against tumor cells expressing the p97 antigen. However, large-scale production of L49-sFv-bL from refolded E. coli inclusion bodies has been problematic due to inefficient refolding and instability of the fusion protein. Sequence analysis of the L49-sFv framework regions revealed three residues in the framework regions at positions L2, H82B, and H91, which are not conserved for their position, occurring in <1% of sequences in Fv sequence databases. One further unusual residue, found in <3% of variable sequences, was observed at position H39. Each unusual residue was mutated to a conserved residue for its position and tested for refolding yield from inclusion bodies following expression in E. coli. The three V(H) single mutants showed improvement in the yield of active protein and were combined to form double and triple mutants resulting in a 7-8-fold increased yield compared to the parental protein. In an attempt to further improve yield, the orientation of the triple mutant was reversed to create a bL-L49-sFv fusion protein resulting in a 3-fold increase in expressed inclusion body protein and producing a 20-fold increase in the yield of purified protein compared to the parental protein. The triple mutants in both orientations displayed increased stability in murine plasma and binding affinity was not affected by the introduced mutations. Both triple mutants also displayed potent in vitro cytotoxicity and in vivo antitumor activity against p97 expressing melanoma cells and tumor xenografts, respectively. These results show that a rational protein-engineering approach improved the yield, stability, and refolding characteristics of L49-sFv-bL while maintaining binding affinity and therapeutic efficacy.

Functional similarities between the small heat shock proteins Mycobacterium tuberculosis HSP 16.3 and human alphaB-crystallin.

Mycobacterium tuberculosis heat shock protein 16.3 (MTB HSP 16.3) accumulates as the dominant protein in the latent stationary phase of tuberculosis infection. MTB HSP 16.3 displays several characteristics of small heat shock proteins (sHsps): its expression is increased in response to stress, it protects against protein aggregation in vitro, and it contains the core 'alpha-crystallin' domain found in all sHsps. In this study we characterized the chaperone activity of recombinant MTB HSP 16.3 in several different assays and compared the results to those obtained with recombinant human alphaB-crystallin, a well characterized member of the sHsp family. Recombinant MTB HSP 16.3 was expressed in Escherichia coli and purified to apparent homogeneity. Similar to alphaB-crystallin, MTB HSP16.3 suppressed citrate synthase aggregation and in the presence of 3.5 mm ATP the chaperone activity was enhanced by twofold. ATP stabilized MTB HSP 16.3 against proteolysis by chymotrypsin, and no effect was observed with ATPgammaS, a nonhydrolyzable analog of ATP. Increased expression of MTB HSP 16.3 resulted in protection against thermal killing in E. coli at 48 degrees C. While the sequence similarity between human alphaB-crystallin and MTB HSP 16.3 is only 18%, these results suggest that the functional similarities between these proteins containing the core 'alpha-crystallin' domain are much closer.