Small protein domains, capable of specific binding to different target proteins have been selected using combinatorial approaches. These binding proteins, called affibodies, were designed by randomization of 13 solvent-accessible surface residues of a stable alpha-helical bacterial receptor domain Z, derived from staphylococcal protein A. Repertoires of mutant Z domain genes were assembled and inserted into a phagemid vector adapted for monovalent phage display. Two libraries, each comprising approximately 4 x 10(7) transformants, were constructed using either an NN(G/T) or an alternative (C/A/G)NN degeneracy. Biopanning against the target proteins Taq DNA polymerase, human insulin, and a human apolipoprotein A-1 variant, showed that in all cases significant enrichments were obtained by the selection procedures. Selected clones were subsequently expressed in Escherichia coli and analyzed by SDS-PAGE, circular dichroism spectroscopy, and binding studies to their respective targets by biospecific interaction analysis. The affibodies have a secondary structure similar to the native Z domain and have micromolar dissociation constants (KD) for their respective targets.

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Overexpression of membrane proteins is often essential for structural and functional studies, but yields are frequently too low. An understanding of the physiological response to overexpression is needed to improve such yields. Therefore, we analyzed the consequences of overexpression of three different membrane proteins (YidC, YedZ, and LepI) fused to green fluorescent protein (GFP) in the bacterium Escherichia coli and compared this with overexpression of a soluble protein, GST-GFP. Proteomes of total lysates, purified aggregates, and cytoplasmic membranes were analyzed by one-and two-dimensional gel electrophoresis and mass spectrometry complemented with flow cytometry, microscopy, Western blotting, and pulse labeling experiments. Composition and accumulation levels of protein complexes in the cytoplasmic membrane were analyzed with improved two-dimensional blue native PAGE. Overexpression of the three membrane proteins, but not soluble GST-GFP, resulted in accumulation of cytoplasmic aggregates containing the overexpressed proteins, chaperones (DnaK/J and GroEL/ S), and soluble proteases (HslUV and ClpXP) as well as many precursors of periplasmic and outer membrane proteins. This was consistent with lowered accumulation levels of secreted proteins in the three membrane protein overexpressors and is likely to be a direct consequence of saturation of the cytoplasmic membrane protein translocation machinery. Importantly accumulation levels of respiratory chain complexes in the cytoplasmic membrane were strongly reduced. Induction of the acetate-phosphotransacetylase pathway for ATP production and a downregulated tricarboxylic acid cycle indicated the activation of the Arc two-component system, which mediates adaptive responses to changing respiratory states. This study provides a basis for designing rational strategies to improve yields of membrane protein overexpression in E. coli.

In recent years, classical antibody‐based affinity reagents have been challenged by novel types of binding proteins developed by combinatorial protein engineering principles. One of these classes of binding proteins of non‐Ig origin are the so‐called affibody binding proteins, functionally selected from libraries of a small (6 kDa), non‐cysteine three‐helix bundle domain used as a scaffold. During the first 10 years since they were first described, high‐affinity affibody binding proteins have been selected towards a large number of targets for use in a variety of applications, such as bioseparation, diagnostics, functional inhibition, viral targeting and in vivo tumor imaging/therapy. The small size offers the possibility to produce functional affibody binding proteins also by chemical synthesis production routes, which has been found to be advantageous for the site‐specific introduction of various labels and radionuclide chelators.

The construction and characterization of a combinatorial library of a solvent-exposed surface of an alpha-helical domain derived from a bacterial receptor is described. Using a novel solid-phase approach, the library was assembled in a directed and successive manner utilizing single-stranded oligonucleotides containing multiple random substitutions for the variegated segments of the gene fragment. The simultaneous substitution of 13 residues to all 20 possible amino acids was carried out in a region spanning 81 nucleotides. The randomization was made in codons for amino acids that were modelled to be solvent accessible at a surface made up from two of the three alpha-helices of a monovalent Fc-binding domain of staphylococcal protein A. After cloning of the PCR-amplified library into a phagemid vector adapted for phage display of the mutants, DNA sequencing analysis suggested a random distribution of codons in the mutagenized positions. Four members of the library with multiple substitutions were produced in Escherichia coli as fusions to an albumin-binding affinity tag derived from streptococcal protein G. The fusion proteins were purified by human serum albumin affinity chromatography and subsequently characterized by SDS-electrophoresis, CD spectroscopy and biosensor analysis. The analyses showed that the mutant protein A derivatives could all be secreted as soluble full-length proteins. Furthermore, the CD analysis showed that all mutants, except one with a proline introduced into helix 2, have secondary structures in close agreement with the wild-type domain. These results proved that members of this alpha-helical receptor library with multiple substitutions in the solvent-exposed surface remain stable and soluble in E. coli.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)