Abstract
Baculovirus expression vector systems (BEVS) are widely used to produce heterologous proteins for a wide range of applications. Developed more than 30 years ago, BEVS have been constantly modified to improve product quality and ease-of-use. Plasmid reagents were tailored and engineered to facilitate introduction of heterologous genes into baculoviral genomes. At the same time, detrimental modalities such as genes encoding proteases or apoptotic factors were removed to improve protein yield. Advances in DNA synthesis and manipulation now enable the engineering of part or whole synthetic baculovirus genomes, opening up new avenues to redesign and tailor the system to specific applications. Here, we describe a simple protocol for designing and constructing baculovirus genomes comprising segments of synthetic DNA through the use of iterative Red/ET homologous recombination reactions.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
References
Gupta K, Tölzer C, Sari-Ak D et al (2019) MultiBac: Baculovirus-mediated multigene DNA cargo delivery in insect and mammalian cells. Viruses 11:1–14
Summers MD (2006) Milestones leading to the genetic engineering of baculoviruses as expression vector systems and viral pesticides. Adv Virus Res 68:3–73
van Oers MM, Pijlman GP, Vlak JM (2015) Thirty years of baculovirus-insect cell protein expression: from dark horse to mainstream technology. J Gen Virol 96:6–23
Assenberg R, Wan PT, Geisse S, Mayr LM (2013) Advances in recombinant protein expression for use in pharmaceutical research. Curr Opin Struct Biol 23:393–402. https://doi.org/10.1016/J.SBI.2013.03.008
Fernandes F, Teixeira AP, Carinhas N et al (2013) Insect cells as a production platform of complex virus-like particles. Expert Rev Vaccines 12:225–236
Airenne KJ, Hu Y-C, Kost TA et al (2013) Baculovirus: an insect-derived vector for diverse gene transfer applications. Mol Ther 21:739–749
Kost TA, Condreay JP (2002) Recombinant baculoviruses as mammalian cell gene-delivery vectors. Trends Biotechnol 20:173–180
Hartig PC, Cardon MC (1992) Rapid efficient production of baculovirus expression vectors. J Virol Methods 38:61–70
Hitchman RB, Possee RD, King LA (2012) High-throughput baculovirus expression in insect cells. In: Lorence A (ed) Methods in molecular biology, 3rd edn. Humana Press, Totowa, NJ, pp 609–627
Luckow V, Lee S, Barry G, Olins P (1993) Efficient generation of infectious recombinant baculoviruses by site-specific transposon-mediated insertion of foreign genes into a baculovirus genome propagated in Escherichia coli. J Virol 67:4566–4579
Ayres MD, Howard SC, Kuzio J et al (1994) The complete DNA sequence of Autographa californica nuclear polyhedrosis virus. Virology 202:586–605
Rohrmann G (2013) Baculovirus Molecular Biology. National Center for Biotechnology Information (US), Bethesda, MD
Slack JM, Kuzio J, Faulkner P (1995) Characterization of v-cath, a cathepsin L-like proteinase expressed by the baculovirus Autographa californica multiple nuclear polyhedrosis virus. J Gen Virol 76:1091–1098
Hom LG, Volkman LE (2000) Autographa californica M Nucleopolyhedrovirus chiA is required for processing of V-CATH. Virology 277:178–183
Hawtin RE, Zarkowska T, Arnold K et al (1997) Liquefaction of Autographa californica nucleopolyhedrovirus-infected insects is dependent on the integrity of virus-encoded chitinase and cathepsin genes. Virology 238:243–253
Kaba SA, Salcedo AM, Wafula PO et al (2004) Development of a chitinase and v-cathepsin negative bacmid for improved integrity of secreted recombinant proteins. J Virol Methods 122:113–118
Berger I, Fitzgerald DJ, Richmond TJ (2004) Baculovirus expression system for heterologous multiprotein complexes. Nat Biotechnol 22:1583–1587
Vijayachandran LS, Thimiri Govinda Raj DB, Edelweiss E et al (2013) Gene gymnastics synthetic biology for baculovirus expression vector system engineering. Bioengineered 4:279–287
Pelosse M, Crocker H, Gorda et al (2017) MultiBac: from protein complex structures to synthetic viral nanosystems. BMC Biol 15:99
Zhang Y, Buchholz F, Muyrers JPP, Stewart FA (1998) A new logic for DNA engineering using recombination in Escherichia coli. Nat Genet 20:123–128
Muyrers J, Zhang Y, Testa G, Stewart FA (1999) Rapid modification of bacterial artificial chromosomes by ET- recombination. Nucleic Acids Res 27:1555–1557
Tischer BK, Von Einem J, Kaufer B, Osterrieder N (2006) Two-step red-mediated recombination for versatile high-efficiency markerless DNA manipulation in Escherichia coli. BioTechniques 40:191–197
Meinke G, Bohm A, Hauber J et al (2016) Cre recombinase and other tyrosine recombinases. Am Chem Soc 116:12785–12820
Nie Y, Chaillet M, Becke C et al (2016) ACEMBL tool-kits for high-throughput multigene delivery and expression in prokaryotic and eukaryotic hosts. In: Advanced technologies for protein complex production and characterization, 896th edn. Springer, Cham, pp 27–42
Acknowledgments
We thank all members of the Berger laboratory for their contributions. We are grateful to Robert Roth (AstraZeneca) for helpful discussions. The authors thank Francis Stewart for the pRed/ET plasmid. B.G. is supported by the Biotechnology and Biological Research Council (BBSRC) through a scholarship from the South West Doctoral Training Programme, SWDTP. I.B. is supported by a European Research Council ERC Advanced Grant (DNA-DOCK) and is recipient of a Wellcome Trust Senior Investigator Award.
Competing Financial Interest Statement
The authors declare competing financial interest. I.B. is inventor on patents protecting MultiBac. I.B. is also shareholder of biotech companies commercializing MultiBac applications.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2021 Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature
About this protocol
Cite this protocol
Crocker, H., Gorda, B., Pelosse, M., Thimiri Govinda Raj, D.B., Berger, I. (2021). SynBac: Enhanced Baculovirus Genomes by Iterative Recombineering. In: Owens, R.J. (eds) Structural Proteomics. Methods in Molecular Biology, vol 2305. Humana, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-0716-1406-8_7
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-0716-1406-8_7
Published:
Publisher Name: Humana, New York, NY
Print ISBN: 978-1-0716-1405-1
Online ISBN: 978-1-0716-1406-8
eBook Packages: Springer Protocols