Patent Application: US-79126405-A

Abstract:
the invention relates to a new type of leptin receptor antagonist , which is able to prevent leptin signaling without preventing the binding of leptin to the leptin binding domain . more specifically , the invention relates to the use of a part of the leptin receptor to prevent the leptin - dependent activation of the receptor , and by this the leptin - induced signaling .

Description:
receptor deletion variants mlr δcrh1 , and mlr δcrh1 , δig ( and the f3 variants thereof , wherein all three cytosolic tyrosines are replaced by phenylalanine residues ) have been constructed using a mutagenesis strategy ( zabeau et al ., 2004 ). in brief , a xho i site was introduced immediately following the signal - peptide encoding sequence . a second xho i site was inserted following the sequence coding for the membrane distal crh1 domain , or for the ig - like domain . resulting vectors were xho i digested and circularized . deletion variant mlr δcrh1 , δig , δcrh2 was made by pcr amplification with oligonucleotides 5 ′- gcg ctcgag tcaaagttcctatgagagggcc - 3 ′ ( with xho i site ) ( seq id no : 4 ) and 5 ′- cgccgcagccgaacgaccga - 3 ′ ( 50 bp downstream kpn i site ) ( seq id no : 5 ). the resulting amplicon was xho i - kpn i digested and ligated into the opened pmet7 mlr δcrh1 , δig vector . the vector pmet7 v5 - mlr δec encodes a lr variant in which the extracellular domain is replaced by the sequence encoding the v5 epitope . lr transmembrane and cytoplasmic domains were amplified with the forward primer 5 ′- gcg ctcgag gtggtaagcctatccctaaccctctcctcggtctcgattctacg ttcaccaaagatgctatcgac - 3 ′ ( with xho i site , and v5 epitope sequence ) ( seq id no : 6 ), and reverse primer 5 ′- cgccgcagccgaacgaccga - 3 ′ ( seq id no : 7 ). also here , after xho i - kpn i digestion , the amplicon was inserted into the opened pmet7 mlr δcrh1 , δig vector . generation of the signaling - deficient lr mutants mlr - f3 and mlr δbox1 ( with two proline to serine mutations in the box 1 motif ) has been described previously ( zabeau et al ., 2004 ). in the full - length receptor and in the deletion variants , the myc tag was replaced by the sequence coding for the flag tag . therefore , the lr sequence between nucleotides 2161 to 2684 was amplified with oligonucleotides 5 ′- cccttgtgaattttaaccttacc - 3 ′ ( 50 bp upstream unique dra iii ) ( seq id no : 8 ) and 5 ′- cgc tctaga ttacttatcgtcgtcatccttgtaatccacagttaagtcacacatc - 3 ′ ( with xba i site , and flag epitope sequence ) ( seq id no : 9 ). the amplicon was dra iii - xba i digested and ligated in the appropriate expression vectors . an expression vector wherein crh2 is coupled to ( i ) the combined flag - his tag , or ( ii ) seap - flag , was constructed by inserting a bgl ii immediately following the sequence encoding the crh2 domain in the pmet7 mlr δcrh1 , δig vector ( mutagenesis primers with bgl ii site : 5 ′- gcttgtcatggatgtaa agatct ctatgagag ggcctgaattttgg - 3 ′ ( seq id no : 10 ), and 5 ′- ccaaaattcaggccctctcatag agatct ttacatccatgacaagc - 3 ′ ( seq id no : 11 ). the resulting vector was cut with bgl ii and xba i . ( i ) oligonucleotides 5 ′- gatcttagattacaaggatgacgacgataagcaccaccaccaccaccactaat - 3 ′ ( seq id no : 12 ) and 5 ′- ctagattagtggtggtggtggtggtgcttatcgtcgtcat ccttgtaatctaa - 3 ′ ( seq id no : 13 ), encode both flag and his tags , and ends are complementary to the bgl ii and xba i sticky ends . oligos were annealed and ligated into the opened vectors , resulting in flag - his tagged protein . ( ii ) alternatively , oligonucleotides 5 ′- gcggcg agatct ctatcatcccagttgaggaggagaacc - 3 ′ ( with bgl ii site ) ( seq id no : 14 ), and 5 ′- cgcc tctaga ttacttatcgtcgtcatccttgtaatcacccggg tgcgcggcgtcg - 3 ′ ( with xba i site and flag sequence ) ( seq id no : 15 ) were used to amplify the sequence encoding the secreted alkaline phosphatase ( seap ). the amplicon was digested with the enzymes bgl ii and xba i , and ligated into the opened vector . expression vectors pmet7 mlr fniii - flag - his and pmet7 mlr fniii - seap - flag were constructed as follows : cdna for fniii domains was amplified using the primers 5 ′- gcg ctcgag ccgttcctatgagagggcctg - 3 ′ ( with xho i ) ( seq id no : 16 ) and 5 ′- cgccgc agatct tccctgcgtcattctgctgcttgtcg - 3 ′ ( with bgl ii ) ( seq id no : 17 ). the crh2 domain in pmet7 mlr crh2 - flag - his and pmet7 mlr crh2 - seap - flag was replaced by a cdna fragment encoding the fniii domains by a xho i - bgl ii digestion of the amplicon and the appropriate vectors . free cysteine residues in the lr variants were mutated to serines . primers used were 5 ′- cgaaaaatgactcactctcgagtgtgaggaggtacg - 3 ′ ( seq id no : 18 ), and 5 ′- cgtacctcctcacactcgagagtgagtcatttttcg - 3 ′ ( seq id no : 19 ) for cys672ser , and 5 ′- gcttatcccctgagcagctcgagcgtcatcctttcctgg - 3 ′ ( seq id no : 20 ) and 5 ′ ccaggaaaggatgacgctcgagctgctcaggggataagc - 3 ′ ( seq id no : 21 ) for the cys751ser mutation . the double mutant lr cys672 , 751ser was constructed by digestion of pmet7 mlr cys751ser with enzymes dra iii and sac i . the resulting insert of 1507 bp was ligated in the dra iii - sac i opened pmet7 mlr cys672ser . generation of the pxp2d2 - rpap1 ( rat pancreatitis associated protein 1 )- luciferase reporter was described before ( eyckerman et al ., 2000 ). activation of this reporter is dependent on stat3 . over - expression of dominant - negative stat3 , but not of dominant - negative stat1 , completely blocks rpap - luciferase reporter activation ( broekaert et al ., 2002 ). tg1 cells containing the nanobody clone were inoculated in 15 ml 2 × ty medium supplemented with 100 μg / ml ampicillin and 1 % glucose . cells were grown at 37 ° c . while shaking till od 600 of 0 . 6 - 0 . 9 was reached . nanobody expression was induced by adding iptg to a final concentration of 1 mm . induced cultures were further incubated overnight at 28 ° c . the next day , cells were harvested by centrifugation , resuspended in 200 μl tes buffer ( 200 mm tris - hcl ; ph 8 . 0 , 0 . 5 mm edta , 500 mm sucrose ), and incubated 20 minutes on ice . after addition of 300 μl tes / 4 buffer ( tes buffer diluted 1 over 4 with water ), cells were kept another 30 minutes on ice . the extracts were finally cleared by centrifugation . hek293t and cos - 1 cells were grown in dmem medium with 4500 mg / l glucose supplemented with 10 % fetal bovine serum ( all from invitrogen ) in 10 % co 2 humidified atmosphere at 37 ° c . for transfection experiments , 4 × 10 5 cells per 10 cm 2 well were freshly seeded and cultured overnight . hek293t and cos - 1 cells were transfected overnight with standard calcium phosphate precipitation or polyethyleneimine procedures , respectively . one day after transfection , cells were washed with pbs - a and cultured overnight until further use ( western blot , co - precipitation , chemical cross - linking , reporter assay or leptin - seap binding ). expression of lr or lr ( deletion ) mutants was monitored using western blot analysis . cells expressing the receptors were lyzed in 300 μl loading buffer and sonicated . samples were loaded on a polyacrylamide gel , and blotted onto a nitrocellulose membrane . proteins were revealed with a monoclonal antibody directed against the flag - tag ( sigma ) and sheep anti - mouse horseradish peroxidase coupled secondary antibody ( amersham bioscience ). hek293t cells were transiently transfected overnight with seap - flag and flag - his fusion protein vectors ( or empty vector as a negative control ). three days after transfection , supernatants were collected and subjected to precipitation with the talon metal affinity resin ( bd bioscience ). fifty μl bed - volume resin per precipitation was washed three times with wash - buffer ( 50 mm napo 4 , 300 mm nacl , 0 . 5 % np40 , ph 7 . 0 ). supernatants were incubated with the resin for one hour at 4 ° c . after three washes with wash - buffer , precipitated complexes were eluted with an acidic elution buffer ( 50 mm sodium acetate , 300 mm nacl , ph 5 . 0 ). co - precipitated seap activity was measured using the chemiluminescent cspd substrate ( phosphalight , tropix ) in a topcount chemiluminescence counter ( packard ). two days after transfection , cells expressing different combinations of lr variants were resuspended with cell dissociation agent ( invitrogen ) and seeded in a 96 - well plate ( costar ). cells were stimulated overnight with leptin ( r & amp ; d systems ) as indicated , or were left un - stimulated . to test the neutralizing capacities of the nanobodies , cells were cultivated overnight with a serial dilution of nanobody - tes extract in combination with a fixed concentration of leptin ( as indicated ). lysates were prepared ( lysis buffer : 25 mm tris , ph 7 . 8 ; 2 mm edta ; 2 mm dtt ; 10 % glycerol ; 1 % triton x - 100 ), and 35 μl luciferase substrate buffer ( 20 mm tricine ; 1 . 07 mm ( mgco 3 ) 4 mg ( oh ) 2 . 5h 2 o ; 2 . 67 mm mgso 4 . 7h 2 o ; 0 . 1 mm edta ; 33 . 3 mm ddt ; 270 μm coenzyme a ; 470 μm luciferin ; 530 μm atp ; final ph 7 . 8 ) was added per 50 μl lysate . light emission was measured for five seconds in a topcount chemiluminescence counter ( packard ). cell surface expression of wild - type lr or lr mutants was measured using a binding assay with a mouse leptin - seap chimeric protein . two days after transfection , cells were washed ( wash buffer : dmem , 0 . 1 % nan 3 , 20 mm hepes ph 7 . 0 , 0 . 01 % tween 20 ) and incubated for 90 minutes at room temperature with a 1 / 50 dilution of a cos - 1 conditioned medium containing the leptin - seap chimera ( final concentration : ± 10 ng / ml ). to test the effect of the nanobodies on binding , transfected cells were incubated with leptin - seap and a 1 over 5 dilution of the tes extracts . after three successive washing steps , cells were lyzed ( lysis buffer : 1 % tritonx - 100 , 10 mm tris - hcl ph 7 . 4 ). endogenous phosphatases in the lysates were inactivated ( 65 ° c ., 30 minutes ), and secreted alkaline phosphatase activity was measured as described above . the lr subdomain - seap fusion proteins were produced as follows : 2 . 5 × 10 6 cos - 1 cells were seeded in 9 cm petri dishes and transfected overnight with plasmids encoding the seap fusion proteins . cells were washed twice with pbs - a and cultured for five more days in medium supplemented with 1 % serum . supernatant was collected and stored until further use . for the production of the proteins crh2 - flag - his or fniii - flag - his 2 . 5 × 10 7 cos - 1 cells were used in 625 cm 2 culture dishes . five days after transfection , supernatants were collected and loaded on a 1 ml anti - flag m2 affinity column ( sigma ) at a flow rate of 0 . 5 ml / minute . column was washed with 50 ml washing buffer ( 150 mm nacl ; 20 mm tris - hcl , ph 7 . 5 ; 5 % glycerol ; and 0 . 1 % np - 40 ). proteins were eluted with flag peptide ( 250 μg / ml in washing buffer ). positive fractions were collected , four times dialyzed against 5 liters pbs - a , and concentrated ten - fold with vivaspin 15r concentrators , with a molecular mass cut - off of 5000 da ( sartorius ). leptin receptors exist as preformed disulphide - linked oligomers on the cell surface a series of murine leptin receptor ( mlr ) deletion variants lacking extra - cellular sub - domains was generated as shown in fig1 . all variants were expressed in cos - 1 cells and analyzed under reducing ( β - mercapto - ethanol ) or non - reducing conditions . as shown in fig1 , all deletion variants , except the one lacking the complete extra - cellular domain ( mlr δec ), formed ligand - independent oligomers on the cellular surface . in all cases , monomers were observed under reducing conditions , indicating that disulphide bridges between the fniii domains , and possibly also in other sub - domains , are involved in lr dimerization . we next analyzed the ligand - independent clustering of the fniii domains in more detail . constructs were generated to produce secreted forms of the fniii domains , either as a flag - his -, or as a seap - flag - tagged protein . when fniii - flag - his was expressed in cos - 1 cells and analyzed under non - reducing conditions , di -, tri - and even higher order clusters were observed ( fig2 , panel a ). this clustering is independent of protein concentration since transfection with smaller amounts of expression vector gave the same clustering pattern . to confirm this fniii - clustering , we set up a his / seap co - precipitation experiment . in this assay , fniii - seap - flag proteins were co - expressed with fniii - flag - his , or with empty vector as a negative control . supernatants were analyzed in a precipitation experiment with a ni 2 + affinity resin . co - precipitated seap activity reflects interaction between the proteins . fig2 , panel b clearly confirms homotypic interaction of the fniii domain . the two mlr fniii domains each contain a single free cysteine residue at positions 672 and 751 , respectively ( haniu et al ., 1998 ). both residues were mutated to serines ( cys672ser and cys751ser ) in the soluble fniii - flag - his construct . as shown in fig2 , panel c , both single mutations only slightly altered disulphide complex formation . in contrast , the double mutant ( cys672 , 751ser ) appeared in a monomeric form under non - reducing conditions , indicating that both cysteines are involved in the observed disulphide bonding . conserved cysteines in the fniii domain are essential for lr activation to examine the role of the fniii cys672 and cys751 residues in activation of the lr , we next analyzed the effect of cys to ser mutations in the membrane - bound wild - type lr long isoform . single and double mutants were tested for their signaling capacity using a stat3 - dependent reporter assay in hek293t cells . results are shown in panel a of fig3 . mutation cys672ser showed clear reduction on the activation of the rpap1 - luciferase reporter , while mlr cys751ser had signaling capacities comparable to the wild - type receptor . combined mutation resulted in a receptor almost completely devoid of biological activity . as shown in fig3 , panel b , cell surface expression of all mutant receptors was comparable to the wild - type lr . we next evaluated signaling using a complementation assay ( zabeau et al :, 2004 ). cys to ser mutations were introduced in the signaling - deficient receptor mutants mlr - f3 ( without functional stat3 recruitment site ) and mlr δbox1 ( unable to activate cytoplasmic associated jak kinases ). different combinations of these receptors were transiently transfected in hek293t cells , along with the rpap1 - luciferase reporter to follow stat3 activation ( fig4 ). data illustrate that mutation of cysteine on position 672 on itself in the mlr - f3 mutant is sufficient to completely block signaling . since this mutant is needed for activation of the jak kinases in our complementation set - up , this indicates that cys672 is strictly necessary for jak activation . mutation of cysteine 751 had no major effect on signaling . we observed spontaneous , ligand - independent stat3 - dependent signaling in cells expressing mlr δcrh1 , δig , δcrh2 when compared to cells expressing a lr variant in which the complete extracellular domain is replaced by the v5 - tag ( fig5 ). to test whether homotypic fniii - fniii interaction was responsible for this ligand - independent signaling , we analyzed the effect of co - expression of signaling - deficient mlr - f3 deletion variants . mlr δcrh1 , δig , δcrh2 and mlr δec and an increasing amount of vector as indicated encoding their f3 counterpart were transiently co - transfected in hek293t cells ( fig5 ). clearly , leptin - independent activation of the mlr δcrh1 , δig , δcrh2 variant was reduced to the background levels observed for mlr δec . it is of note that differences in ligand - independent activity could not simply be explained by differences in expression levels of the different lr deletion variants , as measured by western blot analysis ( see also fig1 ). together , these data lend further support to the role of ( spatially correct ) fniii domain clustering for jak activation and subsequent stat3 - dependent signaling . these data also rule out an important role of the trans - membrane domain in this process . previous experiments showed that the fniii domains , and cysteine residues therein , play a crucial role in lr activation . we next questioned whether preventing homotypic fniii - fniii interaction could inhibit leptin receptor signaling . in a first approach , we evaluated the effect of two stat3 - signaling - deficient f3 mutant receptors on wild - type lr signaling : mlr - f3 δcrh1 , δig , δcrh2 ( with only the fniii domains ) and mlr - f3 δec ( wherein the complete extra - cellular domain was replaced by the v5 - epitope ). a vector encoding the wild - type mlr was co - transfected with increasing amounts of vector encoding the mlr - f3 variants ( fig6 ) and stat3 - dependent reporter activity was measured . results clearly showed that only the lr - f3 variant with the fniii domains could inhibit lr signaling . since the fniii domains cannot bind leptin themselves , these data implied that the mlr - f3 δcrh1 , δig , δcrh2 mutant is recruited in the complex only via fniii - dependent receptor - receptor interactions . in a second approach , we used soluble lr domains to inhibit signaling . proteins crh2 - flag - his and fniii - flag - his were expressed in cos - 1 cells and affinity purified with an anti - flag antibody . hek293t cells were transfected with the wild - type receptor and stimulated overnight with 20 ng / ml leptin in the presence of a serial dilution ( as indicated ) of the purified proteins . results in fig7 demonstrate clear inhibition of leptin - dependent signaling in both cases . inhibition by crh2 - flag - his can obviously be explained by competition for binding of the ligand . fniii - flag - his , lacking any affinity for leptin , can only block signaling by binding to the fniii domains of membrane - bound receptors and thereby obstructing the formation of an active receptor complex . both experimental set ups further point to the crucial role of the fniii domains in the lr activation . role of fniii cysteines in disulphide - dependent lr oligomerization on the cell surface as with the soluble fniii domains , combined mutation of residues cys672 and cys751 in lr δcrh1 , δig , δcrh2 completely abolished disulphide linkage on the cell surface ( fig8 , panel a ). the single cys751ser mutant receptor still showed dimerization , although to a lesser extent when compared to mlr wild - type and cys672ser . in strong contrast to this truncated receptor , mutation of cys672 and cys751 appeared to have no effect at all on disulphide bridging of the full - length receptor ( panel b ). this suggests that the free fniii cysteine residues are not critical for the ligand - independent disulphide linkage of the wild - type receptor . since the fniii domains appear not to be involved in leptin - independent clustering of the receptor , we next focused on the ligand - binding crh2 domain . like fniii , this domain was expressed either as a flag - his tagged or as a seap - flag fusion protein . western blot analysis showed that crh2 - flag - his was expressed as an oligomeric complex , which , similar to the fniii domains , was sensitive to reduction ( fig8 , panel a ). this homotypic crh2 - crh2 interaction was confirmed using a co - precipitation experiment as described for the fniii domains ( fig9 , panel b ). this assay also allowed us to test whether the crh2 - crh2 clustering occurs during biosynthesis . fig9 , panel c , clearly shows that co - precipitation was strictly dependent on co - expression of both tagged crh2 - proteins in the same cell . since both fniii and crh2 domains show homotypic clustering , we next questioned whether the crh2 - crh2 interaction influences the spontaneous receptor activation elicited by fniii domain interactions . different lr deletion variants were transiently transfected and leptin - independent signaling was measured by co - transfection of the rpap1 - luciferase reporter ( fig1 ). results clearly indicate that the presence of crh2 ( alone , or in combination with ig and crh1 ) reduces fniii - mediated signaling to background level . these data strongly suggest that homotypic crh2 - crh2 interactions keep the fniii domains spatially apart so that no spontaneous jak activation and hence signaling can occur . a model of the receptor cluster is shown in fig1 . cells carrying a functional leptin receptor were activated by 100 ng / ml leptin and the activity of the receptor was measured using the rpap1 - luciferase assay as described above . soluble fniii domain ( seq id no : 3 ) was added to the medium , and the decrease in luciferase activity was measured . the results are shown in fig1 . the leptin - induced activity can clearly be inhibited by addition of the non - leptin binding fniii domains . anti - fniii nanobody inhibits leptin signaling but not leptin binding to the receptor camels were immunized with the extracellular part of the leptin receptor . lymphocytes were isolated from the camel blood and used as source of mrna . using this rna as template , vhh sequences were cloned by pcr and inserted in the pax51 vector , allowing phage display and selection of the antibodies . for all the domains ( crh2 , ig and fniii ), binding antibodies have been isolated . one representative antibody for each domain was used for further research . ( cam2 - 10 : ig - domain binding nanobody ; cam2 - 17 : crh2 domain binding antibody ; cam2 - 20 non - neutralizing leptin receptor binding antibody ; cam2 - 30 : fniii domain binding antibody .) those nanobodies were produced in e . coli . a serial dilution of periplasmic tes extract of the bacteria was added to fek293t cells , transfected with the leptin receptor and a rpap1 - luciferase reporter construct . the results are summarized in fig1 . all antibodies ( including the anti - fniii antibody ), except the non - neutralizing one , show an inhibitory effect on leptin signaling at the higher concentration . as a control , to check the leptin receptor specificity , the effect of the antibodies on lif signaling was tested , but no inhibitory effect on the lif receptor could be noticed . to prove that the inhibitory effect was not due to an inhibition of the leptin binding , hek293t cells transfected with leptin receptor were incubated with leptin - seap , with or without addition of antibody . as a control for the specificity of the binding , non - labeled leptin was used to compete with the leptin - seap binding . cells were washed and the alkaline phosphatase activity was measured . the results are shown in fig1 . only the crh2 antibody interfered with the leptin binding . indeed , fong et al . ( 1998 ) demonstrated already that the chr domain is necessary for leptin binding . therefore , binding of an antibody to this domain is supposed to impair leptin binding . however , it is clear that for the anti - fniii nanobody as well as for the anti - ig nanobody , the binding and inhibitory effect of leptin signaling is not caused by an inhibition of the leptin binding to the receptor . to test the specificity of the different antibodies , the ig - crh2 , crh2 , crh1 - ig , crh1 and fniii domains of the extracellular part of the receptor ( see fig1 ) were fused to seap and expressed in cos 1 cells . maxi - sorb plates were coated with anti - his antibodies , and the different his tagged nanobodies were bound on the plates . supernatant of the domain expressing cos 1 cells was added to the wells . after washing , seap alkaline phosphatase activity was tested . the results are summarized in fig1 . it is clear that all antibodies show a strict domain - specific reaction , and that cam2 - 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