Patent Application: US-40063003-A

Abstract:
this invention is to provide a photoprotein which binds with a ligand specific for a substance to be detected at a binding ratio of 1 : 1 such that the luminescence activity is not reduced by binding with the ligand , a conjugate comprising the luminescent photoprotein and ligand , and a substance detection method which employs the conjugate as a marker . a calcium - binding photoprotein is produced having cysteine residue introduced within the 4th amino acid residue from the amino - terminus . a conjugate is formed by binding a ligand specific for a substance to be detected to the calcium - binding photoprotein , in a binding ratio of 1 : 1 , via the introduced cysteine residue . the conjugate may be utilized as a marker for a substance to be detected .

Description:
cysteine residue may be introduced at the n - terminus of a photoprotein either by a method of substituting cysteine for any of the 1 - 4 amino acids from the wild - type n - terminus or a method of inserting cysteine between any of the 1 - 4 amino acids , but cysteine insertion is preferred . specifically , the cysteine residue may be introduced by a well - known technique in the field , such as pcr for introduction of a cysteine codon into the gene coding for the photoprotein . a recombinant expression vector is then prepared containing the resulting cysteine - introduced apoprotein gene , and the cysteine - introduced apoprotein is expressed in appropriate host cells . the preferred apoprotein is apoaequorin . the apoaequorin used may be wild - type apoaequorin having the amino acid sequence listed as seq . id . no . 1 , or a mutant thereof . a preferred mutant is one having an ala - asn - ser - sequence instead of valine at the n - terminus of the wild - type apoaequorin . the cysteine residue may be introduced in the region up to the 4th amino acid thr of the wild - type apoaequorin . when the mutant has an ala - asn - ser - sequence instead of valine at the n - terminus , the cysteine residue may be introduced at any position from the n - terminal ala up to the 6th amino acid thr . the most preferred cysteine - introduced apoaequorin of the invention has cysteine residue introduced between the 5th leu and the 6th thr of the aforementioned mutant , which has the amino acid sequence listed as seq . id . no . 2 . according to the invention , the vector used for expression of the photoprotein may be a vector suitable for a cell - free expression system ( in vitro transcription - translation ) or a protein expression system using host cells such as e . coli , yeast or cultured animal cells . such a vector may be purchased or easily created from a publicly known vector . for example , a vector for expression by in vitro translation or in cultured animal cells may be ptargett vector incorporating the immediate - early enhancer / promoter region of human cytomegalovirus with the t7 promoter sequence / multicloning site downstream therefrom or psi vector comprising the sv40 enhancer and sv40 early promoter ( promega ), or pbk - cmv , cmv - script , pcmv - tag or pbk - rsv ( stratagene ). a vector for expression in microbial cells such as e . coli or yeast may be , for example , a pet series vector expression system comprising t7 promoter for an e . coli system ( for example , pet3a , pet27b (+) or pet28a (+); novogene ), or a pichia system pic series expression vector comprising alcohol oxidase promoter for a yeast system ( for example , ppic9k or pic3 . 5k ; invitrogen ). the recombinant expression vector containing the cysteine - introduced apoaequorin gene is used to transform appropriate host cells , and the host cells are cultured and the expressed apoaequorin isolated . the cysteine - introduced apoaequorin is treated with coelenterazine in the presence of molecular oxygen to regenerate cysteine - introduced aequorin . by using a coelenterazine derivative ( analog compound ) instead of coelenterazine as the luminescent substrate , it is possible to produce semi - synthetic aequorin with luminescence activity . semi - synthetic aequorins have been reported which differ in calcium response or give an improved s / n ratio , with respect to wild - type aequorin ( shimomura et al ., biochem . j . vol . 296 , pp . 549 - 551 , 1993 ). the regenerated aequorin may be purified by hydrophobic chromatography , for example , to obtain high - purity cysteine - introduced aequorin containing no unpurified apoaequorin . the cysteine - introduced aequorin may be bound to its specific ligand via the — sh group of the introduced cysteine residue . the means of binding with the specific ligand will differ depending on the physical and chemical properties of the ligand . depending on the size of the aequorin molecule and steric hindrance with the ligand , the cysteine - intriduced aequorin may be bound to the ligand either directly or via a linker or spacer . there are no particular restrictions on a linker or spacer to be used according to the invention so long as it can react specifically with the — sh group , but it is preferably one with a length of 20 angstroms or greater . a variety of — sh group - modifying reagents are commercially available for use as linkers or spacers , and may be selected as appropriate . the reaction of binding the ligand to the cysteine - introduced aequorin is preferably carried out at no higher than 30 ° c . and preferably no higher than 25 ° c ., and at a ph of 6 - 8 and preferably a ph of 6 - 7 . 5 . the present invention will now be explained in greater detail by examples using aequorin as the photoprotein , with the understanding that the examples are not intended to be limitative on the invention . from expression vector pip - he for mutant apoaequorin having an ala - asn - ser sequence instead of valine at the n - terminus of the wild - type apoaequorin ( j . biochem . 105 , 473 - 477 ( 1989 )), the ecori restriction enzyme site near the n - terminus of the apoaequorin gene was deleted by pcr to construct pip - heδe . a cysteine residue was introduced at the 6th position from the n - terminus of the mutant apoaequorin ( the 4th position from the n - terminus of the wild - type apoaequorin ) by pcr to construct the cysteine - inserted aequorin gene expression vector pip - he - cys4 . fig1 shows the specific construction scheme . there were used 0 . 1 μg of pip - he plasmid as the template and 1 μg each of the pcr primers ompa1 - xbai ( 5 ′ tgg - aac - tct - aga - taa - cga - ggg - caa - aaa3 ′, seq . id . no . 3 ) and ompa1 - hindiii ( 5 ′ tcc - aag - ctt - gga - gtt - cgc - ggc - ctg3 ′, seq . id . no . 4 ). a dna thermal cycler ( perkin elmer ) and a geneamp pcr reagent kit containing amplitaq dna polymerase ( takara shuzo ) were used for pcr amplification of the target fragment , and then the fragment was separated with a pcr purification kit ( qiagen ) and digested with restriction enzymes xbai and hindiii , upon which an xbai - hindiii fragment lacking the ecori restriction enzyme site was obtained . separately , plasmid pip - he was digested with restriction enzymes xbai and hindiii , and the apoaequorin gene - containing vector portion was isolated with a dna purification kit ( qiagen ). this was linked with the amplified xbai - hindiii fragment and the obtained plasmid was used to transform e . coli jm83 . the ecori site - deficient plasmid pip - heδe was isolated from the transformants . the gene sequence was confirmed with a taq dyedeoxy terminator cycle sequencing kit ( applied biosystems ) and a dna 377 sequencer ( applied biosystems ). the amino acid sequence was identical to the original mutant except for the lack of the ecori site . next , there were used 0 . 1 μg of pip - hele plasmid as the template and 1 μg each of the pcr primers cys4 - aq ( 5 ′ ggc - aag - ctt - tgt - act - agt - gac - ttc - gac - aac - cca - aga - tgg3 ′, seq . id . no . 5 ) and 630ecori - aq ( 5 ′ gcc - gaa - ttc - atc - agt - gtt - tta - ttc - aaa3 ′, seq . id . no . 6 ) for pcr amplification of the target fragment with a geneamp pcr reagent kit ( takara shuzo ), followed by isolation of the fragment with a purification kit ( qiagen ) and digestion with restriction enzymes hindiii and ecori to obtain a hindiii - ecori fragment with cysteine at the 6th position from the n - terminus of the mutant apoaequorin gene ( 4th position from the n - terminus of the wild - type apoaequorin gene ). separately , plasmid pip - heδe was digested with restriction enzymes hindiii and ecori , and the vector end containing the promoter and ompa signal peptide was isolated . this was linked with the hindiii - ecori fragment and the obtained plasmid was used to transform e . coli jm83 . plasmid pip - he - cys4 expressing the mutant apoaequorin with cysteine inserted at the 6th position from the n - terminus was isolated from the transformants . the base sequence was determined with a taq dyedeoxy terminator cycle sequencing kit ( applied biosystems ) and a dna 377 sequencer ( applied biosystems ), and confirmed to be the cysteine - inserted apoaequorin ( cys4 - apoaequorin ). the amino acid sequence of cys4 - apoaequorin is listed as seq . id . no . 2 . the recombinant plasmid pip - he - cys4 produced in example 1 was used as the expression vector for transformation of e . coli wa802 as the host according to an ordinary procedure . after culturing 20 transformants overnight at 30 ° c . in lb agar medium ( 10 g bactotryptone , 5 g yeast extract , 5 g sodium chloride in 1 l water , ph 7 . 2 ), they were transferred to lb liquid medium containing 5 ml of ampicillin ( 50 μg / ml ) and further cultured at 37 ° c . for 16 hours . the strain with the highest luminescence activity , i . e . the highest cys4 - apoaequorin - producing strain , was selected and used for larger - scale culturing of a high luminescence activity strain . the cys4 - apoaequorin - producing strain was cultured overnight at 30 ° c . and then transferred to lb liquid medium containing 50 ml of ampicillin ( 50 μg / ml ). after further culturing at 30 ° c . for 8 hours , it was transferred into 2 l of fresh lb liquid medium and cultured overnight ( 18 hours ) at 37 ° c . the cells and culturing solution were separated by low - speed centrifugation ( 5000 × g ). the cells and culturing solution both contained the expressed apoaequorin and therefore both were stored as the starting materials for cys4 - apoaequorin purification . the collected cells were suspended in 400 ml of buffer solution ( 50 mm tris - hcl , 10 mm edta , ph 7 . 6 ) containing 200 mg of dithiothreitol , a reducing agent ( wako pure chemical industries ) after disrupting the cells by ultrasonic treatment for 2 minutes while cooling on ice , they were centrifuged for 20 minutes ( 12 , 000 × g ) and the supernatant was collected . chemically synthesized coelenterazine dissolved in a small amount of methanol was added to the supernatant to a 1 . 2 - fold molar concentration with respect to the cys4 - apoaequorin , and the mixture was allowed to stand at 4 ° c . for more than 5 hours . the obtained supernatant liquid was immediately adsorbed onto a q - sepharose column ( 2 cm diameter × 10 cm , pharmacia ) equilibrated with a column buffer solution ( 20 mm tris - hcl , 10 mm edta , ph 7 . 6 ) and the column was washed with a buffer solution containing 0 . 1 m nacl until the absorbance of the eluate at 280 nm fell below 0 . 05 . the column - adsorbed fraction containing both the unregenerated cys4 - apoaequorin and the regenerated cys4 - aequorin was eluted by a 0 . 1 - 0 . 4 m nacl linear concentration gradient . the regenerated cys4 - aequorin and unregenerated cys4 - apoaequorin were separated in the following manner using butyl sepharose 4 fast flow gel chromatography . ammonium sulfate was added to the orange eluate from the q - sepharose column to a final concentration of 2 m . after this addition the insoluble fraction was removed by centrifugation . the supernatant was then added to butyl sepharose 4 fast flow ( column size : 2 cm diameter × 8 cm , pharmacia ) equilibrated with the aforementioned column buffer solution containing 2 m ammonium sulfate and eluted with a 2 - 1 m ammonium sulfate linear concentration gradient , upon which an orange fraction containing the luminescence active , or regenerated , cys4 - aequorin was collected . the unregenerated cys4 - apoaequorin was separately eluted with the column buffer alone . the purity of the purified fraction was examined by 12 % sds - page . this revealed a single band of the purified fraction corresponding to a 25 kda protein , the purity of which was measured with a densitometer to be ≧ 98 % ( fig2 ). upon determining the purified protein concentration by the bradford method ( biorad ) using bovine serum albumin as a standard sample , the yield was 44 . 6 mg of high - purity cys4 - aequorin from 2l of the cultur solution . the ≧ 98 % purity apoaequorin was obtained from the culture solution and used to regenerate and purify aequorin in the same manner as example 4 . the purified aequorin was analyzed by 12 % sds - page , giving the same results as in example 4 . the yield was 10 . 4 mg of high - purity cys4 - aequorin from 2 l of the culture solution . the purified cys4 - aequorin and 1 . 2 - 3 molar equivalents of maleimide - activated biotin were incubated for 2 hours in pbs solution ( 10 mm phosphate buffer , 2 . 7 mm kcl , 137 mm nacl , ph 7 . 4 ) at a reaction temperature of 0 - 20 ° c . for specific biotinylation of the cysteine residue inserted at the n - terminus . the procedure was conducted as follows . after adding 4 μl ( 30 nmol ) of maleimide - activated biotin ( ez - link peo - maleimide - activated biotin , pierce : spacer length = 29 . 1 angstroms ) dissolved in pbs solution to 800 μl of pbs solution in a 1 . 5 ml polypropylene tube , 200 μl ( 100 nmol ) of cys4 - aequorin was further added to initiate modification reaction , and reaction was conducted for 2 hours at 20 ° c . in the dark . every 30 minutes during the modification reaction , 1 μl of reaction solution was taken and dot blotted on a nitrocellulose membrane ( biorad ) for confirmation of biotinylation by the dot blot coloring method using anti - biotin rabbit antibody - alkali phosphatase ( sigma ). though biotinylation occurred rapidly from 0 - 1 hour , no notable increase in biotinylation was detected from 2 hours and onward . aequorin without cysteine inserted was used as a control for biotinylation under the same conditions , but virtually no biotinylation was detected , thus demonstrating that biotinylation reaction had occurred only with the newly inserted cysteine residue . it was shown that direct binding of ligands other than biotin , such as antibodies , antigens , low molecular organic compounds and the like , is possible by maleimide - type modification with a spacer of 20 angstroms or greater . also , when the luminescent activities of obtained biotinylated cys4 - aequorin and unreacted cys4 - aequorin were compared , virtually no reduction in luminescence activity was observed by the biotinylation , with the biotinylated cys4 - aequorin maintaining a luminescence activity of 96 %. moreover , when the reaction temperature was increased above 30 ° c . in the same reaction system , the luminescence activity fell to below 50 % at 2 hours of reaction . conducting the reaction at a ph of 8 or higher also lowered the luminescence activity to below 50 % at 2 hours of reaction . the cysteine - inserted aequorin biotinylation reaction is therefore preferably conducted at a temperature of no greater than 30 ° c . and more preferably no greater than 25 ° c ., and at a ph of 6 - 8 and more preferably at a ph of 6 - 7 . 5 . the removal of the unreacted reagent , isolation of the biotinylated cys4 - aequorin and buffer solution exchange after the reaction were carried out in a single step of centrifugal filtration using centricon 10 ( amicon ) at 4 ° c . this step has the advantage of allowing replacement of the buffer solution according to the type of reaction system employed . in order to prevent reduction in luminescence activity , the protein concentration is kept / stored at 100 ng / ml or greater at a temperature of no higher than − 80 ° c . this will prevent any notable reduction in activity for at least 6 months . biotinylation using iodoacetyl - activated biotin was conducted in the following manner as another representative specific modification method for cysteine (— sh ) residue . after adding 15 nmol of cys4 - aequorin to 800 μl of 50 mm tris - hcl buffer ( ph 8 . 0 ) containing 40 nmol of iodoacetyl - activated biotin ( ez - link peo - iodoacetyl biotin , pierce : spacer length = 24 . 8 angstroms ), reaction was conducted for 2 hours at 20 ° c . in the dark . every 30 minutes during the modification reaction , 1 μl of reaction solution was taken and dot blotted on a nitrocellulose membrane ( biorad ) for confirmation of biotinylation by the dot blot coloring method using anti - biotin rabbit antibody - alkali phosphatase ( sigma ). though biotinylation occurred rapidly from 0 - 1 hour , no notable increase in biotinylation was detected from 2 hours and onward . aequorin without cysteine inserted was used as a control for biotinylation under the same conditions , but virtually no biotinylation was detected , thus demonstrating that biotinylation reaction had occurred only with the newly inserted cysteine residue . when the luminescent activities of obtained biotinylated cys4 - aequorin and unreacted cys4 - aequorin were compared , the biotinylated cys4 - aequorin was found to retain 88 % luminescence activity . this indicates that specific biotinylation at a newly inserted cysteine residue is possible not only by addition reaction by the maleimide method but also by substitution reaction . it was shown that direct binding of ligands other than biotin , such as antibodies , antigens , low molecular organic compounds and the like , is possible by iodoacetyl - type modification with a spacer of 20 angstroms or greater . the number of biotin bonds per protein molecule in the biotinylated cys4 - aequorin obtained in example 4 was confirmed . for confirmation , the molecular weight was measured by matrix - assisted laser desorption ion time - of - flight mass spectrometry ( maldi - tof - ms ) using a voyager de promass spectrometer ( perseptive biosystem ). this method allows separation of biotinylated and non - biotinylated cysteine - inserted aequorin , to determine the number of biotin bonds . the calculated average molecular weight ( m / z ) for the cys4 - aequorin is 21 , 735 . 34 , and the calculated average molecular weights for cysteine - inserted aequorin biotinylated at 1 , 2 and 3 sites are 22 , 260 . 96 , 22 , 786 . 58 and 23 , 312 . 20 , respectively . angiotensin i ( m / z 1296 . 69 ), insulin ( m / z 5734 . 59 ), apomyoglobin ( m / z 16 , 952 . 60 ) and apoaequorin ( m / z 2163 . 20 ) were used as molecular weight standards . the matrix used was prepared from α - cyano - 4 - hydroxycinnamic acid ( aldrich ) and sinapic acid ( aldrich ). a mixture of 1 . 5 μl of matrix solution and 0 . 5 μl of measuring sample was air - dried , and the mixture was supplied for molecular weight measurement . as a result , peaks were detected at 21 , 723 . 12 , 22 , 252 . 23 and 22 , 474 . 56 corresponding to the molecular weights of unreacted cys4 - aequorin , cys4 - aequorin biotinylated at only one site , and a conjugate of cys4 - aequorin biotinylated at only one site with sinapic acid . the peak ratio was 4 . 9 : 69 . 6 : 25 . 5 . absolutely no cys4 - aequorin biotinylated at 2 sites was detected . these results demonstrated that , with less than 5 % unreacted cys4 - aequorin , one biotin molecule reacts with one molecule of cys4 - aequorin at an efficiency of greater than 95 %. this method therefore achieves stable and highly efficient production of biotinylated aequorin with a binding ratio of 1 : 1 . after adding 100 μl of a 50 mm calcium chloride solution to 1 ng of non - cysteine - inserted recombinant aequorin , cys4 - aequorin or biotinylated cys4 - aequorin , the luminescence and flash luminescence patterns were measured using a luminometer ( td - 4000 , laboscience ) ( fig3 ). in the drawing , a represents non - cysteine - inserted recombinant aequorin , b represents cys4 - aequorin and c represents biotinylated cys4 - aequorin . there was no change between the three luminescences and luminescence patterns , clearly demonstrating that no reduction in luminescence activity or difference in response to calcium occurs by biotinylating modification of the cysteine residue . 2 ) quantitation of biotinylated cys4 - aequorin the detection limit and linearity with respect to protein concentration for biotinylated cys4 - aequorin was examined . the biotinylated protein concentration was diluted in a range from 10 femtograms to 100 nanograms , a 50 mm calcium chloride solution ( 100 μl ) was added , and the luminescence intensity ( initial luminescence intensity maximum : imax ) was measured with a luminometer ( model ab2200 , atto ). the linearity was confirmed by plotting the mean values for 3 measurements ( fig4 ). the detection limit for biotinylated cys4 - aequorin was under 1 picogram , and was therefore equivalent to recombinant aequorin having no introduced cysteine . it was confirmed by direct binding whether the biotin portion of biotinylated cys4 - aequorin recognizes avidin and can be used for its detection in a quantitative manner . after diluting a stock solution ( 1 mg / ml ) containing avidin ( wako pure chemical industries ) dissolved in tbst solution ( 20 mm tris - hcl , ph 7 . 4 , 150 mm nacl , 0 . 05 % tween 20 ), it was dispensed into 5 ml immunoassay polysorb tubes ( nunc ) at concentrations from 1 picogram to 1 microgram , and the avidin was adsorbed onto the tubes . separately , a 1 % bovine serum albumin ( fraction v , seikagaku corp .) solution was prepared using tbst - edta solution ( 10 mm edta - containing tbst solution ). the avidin - adsorbed tubes were then coated with 200 ul of the 1 % bovine serum albumin solution to prevent non - specific adsorption . after adding 5 μl of biotinylated cysteine - inserted aequorin ( 100 μg / ml ) and 100 μl of 1 % bovine serum albumin - containing tbst - edta solution to each of the tubes , they were allowed to stand at room temperature for 20 minutes and then rinsed 3 times with 500 μl of tbst - edta solution . the rinsed tubes were each placed in a luminometer ( model ab2200 , atto ), 100 μl of 50 mm calcium chloride solution was poured therein , and the initial luminescence intensity maximum ( imax ) was measured . each measurement was performed 3 times and the mean values were plotted ( fig5 ). direct binding was exhibited with linearity at 10 nanograms or greater of the biotinylated cys4 - aequorin , thereby allowing quantitation of avidin . the biotinylated cys4 - aequorin of the invention was thus shown to be useful for immunoassay based on biotin - 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