Efficient Mammalian Cell Expression and Single-step Purification of Extracellular Glycoproteins for Crystallization

Summary

This is a quick, cost-efficient protocol for the production of secreted, glycosylated mammalian proteins and subsequent single-step purification with sufficient yields of homogenous protein for X-ray crystallography and other biophysical studies.

Abstract

Production of secreted mammalian proteins for structural and biophysical studies can be challenging, time intensive, and costly. Here described is a time and cost efficient protocol for secreted protein expression in mammalian cells and one step purification using nickel affinity chromatography. The system is based on large scale transient transfection of mammalian cells in suspension, which greatly decreases the time to produce protein, as it eliminates steps, such as developing expression viruses or generating stable expressing cell lines. This protocol utilizes cheap transfection agents, which can be easily made by simple chemical modification, or moderately priced transfection agents, which increase yield through increased transfection efficiency and decreased cytotoxicity. Careful monitoring and maintaining of media glucose levels increases protein yield. Controlling the maturation of native glycans at the expression step increases the final yield of properly folded and functional mammalian proteins, which are ideal properties to pursue X-ray crystallography. In some cases, single step purification produces protein of sufficient purity for crystallization, which is demonstrated here as an example case.

Introduction

Understanding protein structure at an atomic level is key to uncovering the molecular basis of biological pathways and diseases. X-ray protein crystallography is the most widely used/applicable method for determining macromolecular structures. The main challenge of this method is obtaining sufficient amounts of properly folded, pure protein. This becomes an issue particularly when working with secreted mammalian proteins, which undergo specific post-translational modifications.

Bacterially-expressed proteins are the primary source of crystallized proteins deposited in the Protein Data Bank¹. Bacterial expression systems are large....

Protocol

1. Production of Milligram Quantities of Plasmid DNA for Large-scale Transient Transfection

1. Clone the protein of interest into a high copy number mammalian expression vector using restriction site cloning, or other appropriate technique.
   1. For optimal results, use pHLsec ⁷ vector, which has a built-in C-terminal 6His-tag, a strong promoter Kozak sequence and an optimized secretion signal.
2. Transform the plasmid onto competent cells.
   1. Add 20 µl of competent E. coli cells onto 1 µg of plasmid DNA and incubate on ice for 30 min.
   2. Heat shock cells at 42 °C for 35 sec, then incubate....

Results

Herein follows the results of this expression system applied to a secreted 13 kDa immunoglobin (Ig) domain from the human protein triggering receptor expressed on myeloid cells 2 (hTREM2, residues 19-132). TREM2 is a type I transmembrane protein containing a single extracellular Ig domain that has two disulfide bonds and two N-linked glycosylation sites. Unlike many other Ig domain proteins⁸, TREM2 was not amenable to refolding from bacterial inclusion bodies⁹. Subsequent mutagenesis confirmed N-lin.......

Discussion

HEK 293F cells offer robust production of proteins requiring post-translational modifications. This system allows rapid and scalable expression of natively folded proteins containing disulfides, glycosylation, and phosphorylation that would otherwise be absent using more routine expression tools. In addition, this system can be used for the expression and purification of multi-protein complexes simply by co-transfection of multiple plasmids. Besides TREM2, this system has been extensively used for functional studies with.......

Materials

List of materials used in this article

Name	Company	Catalog Number	Comments
Culture Flasks	GeneMate	F-5909B
293 Freestyle Media	Gibco/Life Technologies	12338-018
GlutaMAX	Gibco/Life Technologies	35050-061	Use in place of Glutamine
Hype 5 transfection reagent	Oz Biosciences	HY01500
293fectin transfection reagent	Life Technologies	12347019
PEI transfection reagent	Sigma-Aldrich	408727
Maxiprep Kit	Qiagen	12162
Ni-NTA Superflow	Qiagen	30430
Endo Hf	NEB	P0703L
Amylose Resin	NEB	E8021S
Cell Boost R05.2	HyClone	SH30584.02	Cell Culture Supplement
GlucCell	CESCO Bioengineering	DG2032	Glucose Monitoring System
Opti-MEM	Life Technologies	519850.91	Serum Free Medium for DNA transfection
Luria Broth (LB Media)	Life Technologies	10855-001
GC10 Competent Cells	Sigma-Aldrich	G2919