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Expression of bioactive anti-CD20 antibody fragments and induction of ER stress response in Arabidopsis seeds

  • Applied genetics and molecular biotechnology
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Abstract

Seed-based expression system is an attractive platform for the production of recombinant proteins in molecular farming. Despite the many advantages of molecular farming, little is known about the effect of the different subcellular accumulation of recombinant proteins on the endoplasmic reticulum (ER) quality control system in host plants. In this study, we analyzed the expression of anti-CD20 antibody fragments in seeds of Arabidopsis thaliana (ecotype Columbia) and corresponding glycosylation mutants, and evaluated the influence of three different signal sequences on the expression levels of scFv-Fc of C2B8. The highest protein accumulation level, with a maximum of 6.12 % total soluble proteins, was observed upon fusing proteins to the signal peptide of Arabidopsis seed storage albumin 2. The ER stress responses in developing seeds at 13 days post-anthesis were also compared across different transgenic lines under normal and heat shock conditions. Based on the gene expression profiles of ER stress transducers, our results suggest that accumulation of antibody fragments in the ER exerts more stress on ER homeostasis. In addition, quantitative PCR results also implicate enhanced activation of ER-associated degradation in transgenic lines. Last but not the least, we also demonstrate the anti-tumor potency of plant-derived proteins by showing the anti-tumor activity of purified scFv-Fc proteins against Daudi cells. Together, our data implies that better understanding of the interaction between exogenous protein production and the cellular quality control system of the host plant is necessary for the development of an optimal expression strategy that will be especially beneficial to commercial protein manufacturing.

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Acknowledgments

We thank Dr. Richard Strasser (Institute of Applied Genetics and Cell Biology, University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences) for providing seeds of Arabidopsis glycosylation mutants (TKO); Dr. Yajun Guo (Cancer Institute, Second Military Medical University) for providing CHO-derived Rituximab; and Dr. Julian K-C Ma (Division of Clinical Sciences, St. George’s University of London) for the helpful discussions. This work is supported by the National High Technology Research and Development Program of China (863 Program; Grant No. 2011AA100606), the Excellent innovation Team Project of Jilin Province, China (Grant No.20111815), and Wenzhou Outstanding Team for Science and Technology Innovation (No. 2010R50042).

Conflict of interest

The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. College of Life Sciences, Jilin University, Changchun, 130021, China

    Dezhong Wang & Xiaokun Li

  2. Ministry of Education Engineering Research Center of Bioreactor and Pharmaceutical Development, Jilin Agricultural University, Changchun, China

    Dezhong Wang, Haiyan Li, Chao Jiang & Xiaokun Li

  3. School of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Zhejiang Key Laboratory of Biotechnology and Pharmaceutical Engineering, Wenzhou Medical University, Chashan College Park, Wenzhou, 325035, China

    Dezhong Wang, Jisheng Ma, Difei Sun, Chao Jiang & Xiaokun Li

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  1. Dezhong Wang
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  2. Jisheng Ma
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Correspondence to Chao Jiang or Xiaokun Li.

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Wang, D., Ma, J., Sun, D. et al. Expression of bioactive anti-CD20 antibody fragments and induction of ER stress response in Arabidopsis seeds. Appl Microbiol Biotechnol 99, 6753–6764 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00253-015-6601-6

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00253-015-6601-6

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