Chimeric ribonuclease as a source of human adapter protein for targeted drug delivery

Author: Gaynutdinov Timur I.   Myshkin Eugene   Backer Joseph M.   Backer Marina V.  

Publisher: Oxford University Press

ISSN: 1460-213X

Source: Protein Engineering, Vol.16, Iss.10, 2003-10, pp. : 771-775

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Abstract

Assembled modular complexes for targeted drug delivery can be based on strong non‐covalent interactions between a cargo module containing an adapter protein and a docking tag fused to a targeting protein. We have recently constructed a completely humanized adapter/docking tag system based on interactions between 15 amino acid (Hu‐tag) and 110 amino acid (HuS) fragments of human ribonuclease I (RNase I). Although recombinant HuS can be expressed and refolded into a functionally active form, the purification procedure is cumbersome and expensive, and more importantly, it yields a significant proportion of improperly folded proteins. Here we describe engineering, high‐yield expression, and purification of a chimeric bovine/human RNase (BH‐RNase) comprising 1-29 N-terminal amino acids of bovine ribonuclease A and 30-127 amino acids of human RNase I. Unlike RNase I, the chimeric BH‐RNase can be cleaved by either subtilisin or proteinase K between A20 and S21, providing a functionally active HuS. The HuS obtained from chimeric BH‐RNase differs from wild‐type HuS by an N24T substitution; therefore, we have reverted this substitution by mutating N24 to T24 in BH‐RNase. This BH‐RNase mutant can also be cleaved by subtilisin or proteinase K yielding wild‐type HuS. The affinity of HuS obtained from BH‐RNase to Hu‐tag is approximately five times higher than that for recombinant HuS, reflecting a higher percentage of properly folded proteins.