The insulin receptor is a phylogenetically ancient tyrosine kinase receptor found in organisms as primitive as cnidarians and insects. In higher organisms it is essential for glucose homeostasis, whereas the closely related insulin-like growth factor receptor (IGF-1R) is involved in normal growth and development. The insulin receptor is expressed in two isoforms, IR-A and IR-B; the former also functions as a high-affinity receptor for IGF-II and is implicated, along with IGF-1R, in malignant transformation. Here we present the crystal structure at 3.8 A resolution of the IR-A ectodomain dimer, complexed with four Fabs from the monoclonal antibodies 83-7 and 83-14 (ref. 4), grown in the presence of a fragment of an insulin mimetic peptide. The structure reveals the domain arrangement in the disulphide-linked ectodomain dimer, showing that the insulin receptor adopts a folded-over conformation that places the ligand-binding regions in juxtaposition. This arrangement is very different from previous models. It shows that the two L1 domains are on opposite sides of the dimer, too far apart to allow insulin to bind both L1 domains simultaneously as previously proposed. Instead, the structure implicates the carboxy-terminal surface of the first fibronectin type III domain as the second binding site involved in high-affinity binding.

BackgroundCollagen has proved valuable as biomedical materials for a range of clinical applications, particularly in wound healing. It is normally produced from animal sources, such as from bovines, but concerns have emerged over transmission of diseases. Recombinant collagens would be preferable, but are difficult to produce. Recently, studies have shown that ‘collagens’ from bacteria, including Streptococcus pyogenes, can be produced in the laboratory as recombinant products, and that these are biocompatible. In the present study we have established that examples of bacterial collagens can be produced in a bioreactor with high yields providing proof of manufacture of this important group of proteins.ResultsProduction trials in shake flask cultures gave low yields of recombinant product, < 1 g/L. Increased yields, of around 1 g/L, were obtained when the shake flask process was transferred to a stirred tank bioreactor, and the yield was further enhanced to around 10 g/L by implementation of a high cell density fed-batch process and the use of suitably formulated fully defined media. Similar yields were obtained with 2 different constructs, one containing an introduced heparin binding domain. The best yields, of up to 19 g/L were obtained using this high cell density strategy, with an extended 24 h production time.ConclusionsThese data have shown that recombinant bacterial collagen from S. pyogenes, can be produced in sufficient yield by a scalable microbial production process to give commercially acceptable yields for broad use in biomedical applications.

Bacterially derived triple-helical, collagen-like proteins are attractive as potential biomedical materials. The collagen-like domain of the Scl2 protein from S. pyogenes lacks any specific binding sites for mammalian cells yet possesses the inherent structural integrity of the collagen triple-helix of animal collagens. It can, therefore, be considered as a structurally-stable "blank slate" into which various defined, biological sequences, derived from animal collagens, can be added by substitutions or insertions, to enable production of novel designed materials to fit specific functional requirements. In the present study, we have used site directed mutagenesis to substitute two functional sequences, one for heparin binding and the other for integrin binding, into different locations in the triple-helical structure. This provided three new constructs, two containing the single substitutions and one containing both substitutions. The stability of these constructs was marginally reduced when compared to the unmodified sequence. When compared to the unmodified bacterial collagen, both the modified collagens that contain the heparin binding site showed marked binding of fluorescently labeled heparin. Similarly, the modified collagens from both constructs containing the integrin binding site showed significant adhesion of L929 cells that are known to possess the appropriate integrin receptor. C2C12 cells that lack any appropriate integrins did not bind. These data show that bacterial collagen-like sequences can be modified to act like natural extracellular matrix collagens by inserting one or more unique biological domains with defined function.