scholarly journals Bactericidal Effects of a Fusion Protein of Llama Heavy-Chain Antibodies Coupled to Glucose Oxidase on Oral Bacteria

2004 ◽  
Vol 48 (9) ◽  
pp. 3390-3395 ◽  
Author(s):  
A. Szynol ◽  
J. J. de Soet ◽  
E. Sieben-van Tuyl ◽  
J. W. Bos ◽  
L. G. Frenken

ABSTRACT Enzymes such as lactoperoxidase and glucose oxidase (GOx) are used as antimicrobial agents in oral care products. Their low specificities and substantiveness can be reduced by covalent coupling of antimicrobial molecules to antibodies. Variable domains (VHH) derived from llama heavy-chain antibodies are particularly suited for such an approach. The antibodies are composed solely of heavy-chain dimers; therefore, production of active fusion proteins by using molecular biology-based techniques is less complicated than production by use of conventional antibodies. In this study, a fusion protein consisting of VHH and GOx was constructed and expressed by Saccharomyces cerevisiae. A llama was immunized with Streptococcus mutans strain HG982. Subsequently, B lymphocytes were isolated and cDNA fragments encoding the VHH fragments were obtained by reverse transcription-PCR. After construction of a VHH library in Escherichia coli and screening of the library against mutans group streptococci and Streptococcus sanguinis strains, we found two VHH fragments with high specificities for S. mutans strains. A GOx gene was linked to the two VHH genes and cloned into S. cerevisiae yeasts. The yeasts expressed and secreted the recombinant proteins into the growth medium. The test of binding of fusion proteins to oral bacteria through their VHH fragments showed that S. mutans had been specifically targeted by GOx-S120, one of the fusion protein constructs. A low concentration of the fusion protein was also able to selectively kill S. mutans within 20 min in the presence of lactoperoxidase and potassium iodide. These findings demonstrate that the fusion protein GOx-VHH is potentially valuable in the selective killing of target bacteria such as S. mutans.

BMC Cancer ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 21 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Chen-Chen Huang ◽  
Fang-Rui Liu ◽  
Qiang Feng ◽  
Xin-Yan Pan ◽  
Shu-Ling Song ◽  
...  

Abstract Background We prepared an anti-p21Ras scFv which could specifically bind with mutant and wild-type p21Ras. However, it cannot penetrate the cell membrane, which prevents it from binding to p21Ras in the cytoplasm. Here, the RGD4C peptide was used to mediate the scFv penetration into tumor cells and produce antitumor effects. Methods RGD4C-EGFP and RGD4C-p21Ras-scFv recombinant expression plasmids were constructed to express fusion proteins in E. coli, then the fusion proteins were purified with HisPur Ni-NTA. RGD4C-EGFP was used as reporter to test the factors affecting RGD4C penetration into tumor cell. The immunoreactivity of RGD4C-p21Ras-scFv toward p21Ras was identified by ELISA and western blotting. The ability of RGD4C-p21Ras-scFv to penetrate SW480 cells and colocalization with Ras protein was detected by immunocytochemistry and immunofluorescence. The antitumor activity of the RGD4C-p21Ras-scFv was assessed with the MTT, TUNEL, colony formation and cell migration assays. Chloroquine (CQ) was used an endosomal escape enhancing agent to enhance endosomal escape of RGD4C-scFv. Results RGD4C-p21Ras-scFv fusion protein were successfully expressed and purified. We found that the RGD4C fusion protein could penetrate into tumor cells, but the tumor cell entry of was time and concentration dependent. Endocytosis inhibitors and a low temperature inhibited RGD4C fusion protein endocytosis into cells. The change of the cell membrane potential did not affect penetrability. RGD4C-p21Ras-scFv could penetrate SW480 cells, effectively inhibit the growth, proliferation and migration of SW480 cells and promote this cells apoptosis. In addition, chloroquine (CQ) could increase endosomal escape and improve antitumor activity of RGD4C-scFv in SW480 cells. Conclusion The RGD4C peptide can mediate anti-p21Ras scFv entry into SW480 cells and produce an inhibitory effect, which indicates that RGD4C-p21Ras-scFv may be a potential therapeutic antibody for the treatment of ras-driven cancers.


1992 ◽  
Vol 89 (23) ◽  
pp. 11337-11341 ◽  
Author(s):  
H. Vie ◽  
T. Gauthier ◽  
R. Breathnach ◽  
M. Bonneville ◽  
A. Godard ◽  
...  

1993 ◽  
Vol 123 (1) ◽  
pp. 119-126 ◽  
Author(s):  
W Voos ◽  
B D Gambill ◽  
B Guiard ◽  
N Pfanner ◽  
E A Craig

To test the hypothesis that 70-kD mitochondrial heat shock protein (mt-hsp70) has a dual role in membrane translocation of preproteins we screened preproteins in an attempt to find examples which required either only the unfoldase or only the translocase function of mt-hsp70. We found that a series of fusion proteins containing amino-terminal portions of the intermembrane space protein cytochrome b2 (cyt. b2) fused to dihydrofolate reductase (DHFR) were differentially imported into mitochondria containing mutant hsp70s. A fusion protein between the amino-terminal 167 residues of the precursor of cyt. b2 and DHFR was efficiently transported into mitochondria independently of both hsp70 functions. When the length of the cyt. b2 portion was increased and included the heme binding domain, the fusion protein became dependent on the unfoldase function of mt-hsp70, presumably caused by a conformational restriction of the heme-bound preprotein. In the absence of heme the noncovalent heme binding domain in the longer fusion proteins no longer conferred a dependence on the unfoldase function. When the cyt. b2 portion of the fusion protein was less than 167 residues, its import was still independent of mt-hsp70 function; however, deletion of the intermembrane space sorting signal resulted in preproteins that ended up in the matrix of wild-type mitochondria and whose translocation was strictly dependent on the translocase function of mt-hsp70. These findings provide strong evidence for a dual role of mt-hsp70 in membrane translocation and indicate that preproteins with an intermembrane space sorting signal can be correctly imported even in mutants with severely impaired hsp70 function.


2018 ◽  
Vol 19 (11) ◽  
pp. 3444 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hanna Wagner ◽  
Sarah Wehrle ◽  
Etienne Weiss ◽  
Marco Cavallari ◽  
Wilfried Weber

Nanobodies, the smallest possible antibody format, have become of considerable interest for biotechnological and immunotherapeutic applications. They show excellent robustness, are non-immunogenic in humans, and can easily be engineered and produced in prokaryotic hosts. Traditionally, nanobodies are selected from camelid immune libraries involving the maintenance and treatment of animals. Recent advances have involved the generation of nanobodies from naïve or synthetic libraries. However, such approaches demand large library sizes and sophisticated selection procedures. Here, we propose an alternative, two-step approach for the design and generation of nanobodies. In a first step, complementarity-determining regions (CDRs) are grafted from conventional antibody formats onto nanobody frameworks, generating weak antigen binders. In a second step, the weak binders serve as templates to design focused synthetic phage libraries for affinity maturation. We validated this approach by grafting toxin- and hapten-specific CDRs onto frameworks derived from variable domains of camelid heavy-chain-only antibodies (VHH). We then affinity matured the hapten binder via panning of a synthetic phage library. We suggest that this strategy can complement existing immune, naïve, and synthetic library based methods, requiring neither animal experiments, nor large libraries, nor sophisticated selection protocols.


1999 ◽  
Vol 73 (3) ◽  
pp. 2263-2269 ◽  
Author(s):  
Pascal Cherpillod ◽  
Karin Beck ◽  
Andreas Zurbriggen ◽  
Riccardo Wittek

ABSTRACT The biological properties of wild-type A75/17 and cell culture-adapted Onderstepoort canine distemper virus differ markedly. To learn more about the molecular basis for these differences, we have isolated and sequenced the protein-coding regions of the attachment and fusion proteins of wild-type canine distemper virus strain A75/17. In the attachment protein, a total of 57 amino acid differences were observed between the Onderstepoort strain and strain A75/17, and these were distributed evenly over the entire protein. Interestingly, the attachment protein of strain A75/17 contained an extension of three amino acids at the C terminus. Expression studies showed that the attachment protein of strain A75/17 had a higher apparent molecular mass than the attachment protein of the Onderstepoort strain, in both the presence and absence of tunicamycin. In the fusion protein, 60 amino acid differences were observed between the two strains, of which 44 were clustered in the much smaller F2 portion of the molecule. Significantly, the AUG that has been proposed as a translation initiation codon in the Onderstepoort strain is an AUA codon in strain A75/17. Detailed mutation analyses showed that both the first and second AUGs of strain A75/17 are the major translation initiation sites of the fusion protein. Similar analyses demonstrated that, also in the Onderstepoort strain, the first two AUGs are the translation initiation codons which contribute most to the generation of precursor molecules yielding the mature form of the fusion protein.


2019 ◽  
Vol 10 (4) ◽  
pp. 56 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hamid Mortazavian ◽  
Guillaume A. Picquet ◽  
Jānis Lejnieks ◽  
Lynette A. Zaidel ◽  
Carl P. Myers ◽  
...  

In this study, we have prepared a series of 4- and 6-arm star-shaped polymers with varying molecular weight and hydrophobicity in order to provide insight into the role and relationship that shape and composition have on the binding and protecting of oral relevant surfaces (hydroxyapatite, HAP) from bacteria colonization. Star-shaped acrylic acid polymers were prepared by free-radical polymerization in the presence of chain transfer agents with thiol groups, and their binding to the HAP surfaces and subsequent bacteria repulsion was measured. We observed that binding was dependent on both polymer shape and hydrophobicity (star vs. linear), but their relative efficacy to reduce oral bacteria attachment from surfaces was dependent on their hydrophobicity only. We further measured the macroscopic effects of these materials to modify the mucin-coated HAP surfaces through contact angle experiments; the degree of angle change was dependent on the relative hydrophobicity of the materials suggesting future in vivo efficacy. The results from this study highlight that star-shaped polymers represent a new material platform for the development of dental applications to control bacterial adhesion which can lead to tooth decay, with various compositional and structural aspects of materials being vital to effectively design oral care products.


2016 ◽  
Vol 2016 ◽  
pp. 1-10 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marek Konop ◽  
Tatsiana Damps ◽  
Aleksandra Misicka ◽  
Lidia Rudnicka

Resistance to antimicrobial agents by pathogenic bacteria has emerged in recent years and is a major health problem. In this context silver and silver nanoparticles (AgNP) have been known to have inhibitory and bactericidal effects and was used throughout history for treatment of skin ulcer, bone fracture, and supporting wound healing. In all of these applications prevention and treatment of bacterial colonized/infected wounds are critical. In this context silver and its derivatives play an important role in health care. Silver is widely used in clinical practice in the form of silver nitrate and/or silver sulfadiazine. In the last few years silver nanoparticles entered into clinical practice as both antimicrobial and antifungal agents. In addition, nanosilver is used in coating medical devices (catheters) and as component of wound dressings. In this paper we present summarized information about silver and nanoparticles made of silver in the context of their useful properties, especially antibacterial ones, being of a great interest for researchers and clinicians.


Blood ◽  
1994 ◽  
Vol 84 (4) ◽  
pp. 1157-1163 ◽  
Author(s):  
EA Barron-Casella ◽  
TS Kickler ◽  
OC Rogers ◽  
JF Casella

Abstract The platelet antigens, PlA1 and PlA2, are responsible for most cases of posttransfusion purpura (PTP) and neonatal alloimmune thrombocytopenia (NAIT) in the caucasian population and are determined by two allelic forms of the platelet glycoprotein GPIIIa gene. To study the interaction between these antigens and their respective antibodies, we inserted the sequence that encodes the signal peptide and the N- terminal 66 amino acids of the PlA1 form of GPIIIa into the expression vector pGEX1. To express the PlA2 antigen, nucleotide 196 of the PlA1 coding sequence was mutated to the PlA2 allelic form. When transformed and induced in Escherichia coli, the two constructs produce glutathione S-transferase (GST)/N-terminal GPIIIa fusion proteins, one containing leucine at position 33 (PlA1), the other proline (PlA2). These proteins are easily purified in milligram quantities using glutathione-Sepharose and react specifically with their respective antibodies by immunoblot and enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay. Antigenicity of the PlA1 fusion protein in reduced glutathione increases with time; moreover, the addition of oxidized glutathione accelerates this process, presumably because of formation of the native disulfide bonds. Neutralization assays indicate that the PlA1 fusion protein competes for all of the anti-PlA1 antibody in the serum of patients with PTP and NAIT that is capable of interacting with the surface of intact platelets. This study shows that the GST/N-terminal GPIIIa fusion proteins contain conformational epitopes that mimic those involved in alloimmunization, and that regions other than the amino terminal 66 amino acids of GPIIIa are not likely to contain or be required for the development of functional PlA1 epitopes. Furthermore, these recombinant proteins can be used for the affinity-purification of clinical anti-PlA1 antibodies and specific antibody identification by western blotting, making them useful in the diagnosis of patients alloimmunized to PlA1 alloantigens.


2008 ◽  
Vol 82 (18) ◽  
pp. 9245-9253 ◽  
Author(s):  
M. Umashankar ◽  
Claudia Sánchez-San Martín ◽  
Maofu Liao ◽  
Brigid Reilly ◽  
Alice Guo ◽  
...  

ABSTRACT The class II fusion proteins of the alphaviruses and flaviviruses mediate virus infection by driving the fusion of the virus membrane with that of the cell. These fusion proteins are triggered by low pH, and their structures are strikingly similar in both the prefusion dimer and the postfusion homotrimer conformations. Here we have compared cholesterol interactions during membrane fusion by these two groups of viruses. Using cholesterol-depleted insect cells, we showed that fusion and infection by the alphaviruses Semliki Forest virus (SFV) and Sindbis virus were strongly promoted by cholesterol, with similar sterol dependence in laboratory and field isolates and in viruses passaged in tissue culture. The E1 fusion protein from SFV bound cholesterol, as detected by labeling with photocholesterol and by cholesterol extraction studies. In contrast, fusion and infection by numerous strains of the flavivirus dengue virus (DV) and by yellow fever virus 17D were cholesterol independent, and the DV fusion protein did not show significant cholesterol binding. SFV E1 is the first virus fusion protein demonstrated to directly bind cholesterol. Taken together, our results reveal important functional differences conferred by the cholesterol-binding properties of class II fusion proteins.


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