Modifying Baculovirus Expression Vectors to Produce Secreted Plant Proteins in Insect Cells

Summary

Here, we present the protocols for utilizing the insect cell and baculovirus protein expression system to produce large quantities of plant secreted proteins for protein crystallization. A baculovirus expression vector has been modified with either GP67 or insect hemolin signal peptide for plant protein secretion expression in insect cells.

Abstract

It has been a challenge for scientists to express recombinant secretory eukaryotic proteins for structural and biochemical studies. The baculovirus-mediated insect cell expression system is one of the systems used to express recombinant eukaryotic secretory proteins with some post-translational modifications. The secretory proteins need to be routed through the secretory pathways for protein glycosylation, disulfide bonds formation, and other post-translational modifications. To improve the existing insect cell expression of secretory plant proteins, a baculovirus expression vector is modified by the addition of either a GP67 or a hemolin signal peptide sequence between the promoter and multiple-cloning sites. This newly designed modified vector system successfully produced a high yield of soluble recombinant secreted plant receptor proteins of Arabidopsis thaliana. Two of the expressed plant proteins, the extracellular domains of Arabidopsis TDR and PRK3 plasma membrane receptors, were crystallized for X-ray crystallographic studies. The modified vector system is an improved tool that can potentially be used for the expression of recombinant secretory proteins in the animal kingdom as well.

Introduction

It is imperative for a research laboratory to be capable of producing large quantities of homogeneous recombinant proteins for biochemical and biophysical characterizations, especially for X-ray crystallographic studies. There are many well-established heterologous expression systems such as Escherichia coli, yeast, insect cells, mammalian cells, plant cells, etc. Among them, the baculovirus-mediated insect cell expression system is one of the most commonly used techniques to produce large quantities of structurally folded large-sized recombinant eukaryotic proteins for protein crystallization¹.

The....

Protocol

NOTE: An insect cell/baculovirus system with modified expression vectors for secretory plant protein expression and crystallization is used.

1. Modification of a Baculovirus Expression Vector with the GP67 Signal Peptide for Plant Protein Secretion Expression

1. Synthesize a DNA fragment containing a 5' BglII cutting site¹³, the GP67 secretion signal sequence, and a multi-cloning site with NotI, BamHI, EcoRI, StuI, SalI, SpeI, XbaI, PstI, and XhoI (Figure 1A).
   NOTE: Since both BglII and BamHI digested DNA resulted in the same adhesive ends, the linearized vector can l....

Results

As shown in Figure 1, two modified pFastBac1 baculovirus expression vectors were used to express the secreted proteins with either the GP67 or the hemolin signal sequence to replace the intrinsic signal sequence of the target gene. The viral GP67 and the insect hemolin genes have been demonstrated to have high secretion expression levels in the cells. Fusion proteins with either of these two signal sequences are expected to have greatly improved secretion exp.......

Discussion

Given the diversity in size and stability of the thousands of proteins present in the biological systems, it is often empirical for a research laboratory to decide which heterologous expression system has to be chosen for the expression of a specific protein. The E. coli expression system is often the first choice for protein expression due to the short life cycle of the bacteria, low cost of the culture media, and relative ease to scale up¹⁹. For the expression of large eukaryotic protei.......

Materials

List of materials used in this article

Name	Company	Catalog Number	Comments
Incubator shaker	VWR	Model Excella E25	27 oC
Incubator	VWR	Model 2005	27 oC
Centrifuge	BECKMAN	Model J-6	with a swing bucket rotor
Herculase II Fusion DNA Polymerase	Agilent	600677-51	For PCR amplification of DNA
Thermal Cycler	BIO-RAD	Model C1000 Touch	For PCR amplification of DNA
Incubator shaker	New Brunswick Scientific	Model I 24	For growing baceria culture
Customer DNA synthesis	GENSCRIPT
BamHI (HF)	New England Biolabs	R3136S	Restriction Endonuclease
BglII	New England Biolabs	R0144S	Restriction Endonuclease
NotI (HF)	New England Biolabs	R3189S	Restriction Endonuclease
XhoI	New England Biolabs	R0146S	Restriction Endonuclease
T4 DNA ligase	New England Biolabs	M0202T	DNA ligation
QIAquick Gel Extraction Kit	Qiagen	28704	DNA purification from Agorase gel
QIAprep Spin Miniprep Kit	Qiagen	27104	Plasmid DNA purification from bacteria culture
Agarose	Thermo Fisher Scientific	15510-019	For DNA gel electropherosis
MAX Efficiency DH5α competen cell	Invitrogen	18-258-012	For transformation of DNA ligation mixture
Lennox L LB Broth	Research Product International Corp.	L24066-5000.0	For making bacteria culture
Ampicillin sodium salt	Thermo Fisher Scientific	11593-019	Antibiotics
Kanamycin Sulfate	Thermo Fisher Scientific	15160-054	Antibiotics
Tetracycline	Thermo Fisher Scientific	64-75-5	Antibiotics
Gentamicin	Thermo Fisher Scientific	15710-064	Antibiotics
MAX Efficiency DH10Bac competent cells	Thermo Fisher Scientific	10361-012	For making bacmid DNA
S.O.C. Medium	Thermo Fisher Scientific	15544-034	For DNA transformation
CellFECTIN II Reagent	Thermo Fisher Scientific	10362-101	Insect cell transfection reagent
Bac-to-Bac Expression System	Thermo Fisher Scientific	10359-016	Baculovirus-insect cells expression kit
Bluo-gal	Thermo Fisher Scientific	15519-028	For isolation of recominant Bacmid DNA
IPTG	Thermo Fisher Scientific	15529-019	For isolation of recominant Bacmid DNA
pFastBac1	Thermo Fisher Scientific	10360014	Baculorirus expression vector
Sf9 cells	Thermo Fisher Scientific	11496015	Sf9 monolayer cells
Hi5 cells	Thermo Fisher Scientific	B85502	High Five insect cells
Grace’s insect medium, unsupplemented	Thermo Fisher Scientific	11595030	Sf9 cell transfection minimum medium
Grace’s insect medium, supplemented	Thermo Fisher Scientific	11605102	Sf9 monolayer cell culture complete medium
Sf-900 II SFM	Thermo Fisher Scientific	10902104	Sf9 suspension cell culture medium without FBS
Express Five SFM	Thermo Fisher Scientific	10486025	Hi5 cell culture medium
Penicillin-Streptomycin	Thermo Fisher Scientific	15140122	100 ml (10,000 I.U./ml)
L-Glutamine (200 mM)	Thermo Fisher Scientific	25030081	100 ml
FBS Certified	Thermo Fisher Scientific	16000-044	500 ml
6-well plates	Thermo Fisher Scientific	08-772-1B	Flat-bottom
150 mm plates	Thermo Fisher Scientific	353025	100/case
1.5 ml Microcentrifuge Tubes	USA Scientific	1415-2500	500 tubes/bag
15 ml conical screw cap centrifuge tubes	USA Scientific	1475-0511	25 tubes/bag
50 ml conical screw cap centrifuge tubes	USA Scientific	1500-1211	25 tubes/bag
Ni-NTA Superflow	Qiagen	30430	NiNTA resin
pH-indicator strips	EMD Millipore Corporation	1.09535.0001	pH 0 - 14