Expression, purification and bioactivity analysis of a recombinant fusion protein rHSA-hFGF21 in Pichia pastoris.
- Author:
Tiantian HUANG
1
;
Jianying QI
1
;
Ganggang YANG
1
;
Xianlong YE
1
Author Information
- Publication Type:Journal Article
- Keywords: Pichia pastoris; diabetes; fibroblast growth factor 21 (FGF21); fusion protein; human serum albumin (HSA)
- MeSH: Animals; Blood Glucose/metabolism*; Diabetes Mellitus, Experimental; Fibroblast Growth Factors; Humans; Hypoglycemic Agents/metabolism*; Methanol/metabolism*; Mice; Pichia/metabolism*; Recombinant Fusion Proteins; Recombinant Proteins/metabolism*; Saccharomycetales; Serum Albumin/metabolism*; Serum Albumin, Human/metabolism*
- From: Chinese Journal of Biotechnology 2022;38(9):3419-3432
- CountryChina
- Language:Chinese
- Abstract: Human fibroblast growth factor 21 (hFGF21) has become a candidate drug for regulating blood glucose and lipid metabolism. The poor stability and short half-life of hFGF21 resulted in low target tissue availability, which hampers its clinical application. In this study, the hFGF21 was fused with a recombinant human serum albumin (HSA), and the resulted fusion protein rHSA-hFGF21 was expressed in Pichia pastoris. After codon optimization, the recombinant gene fragment rHSA-hFGF21 was inserted into two different vectors (pPIC9k and pPICZαA) and transformed into three different strains (X33, GS115 and SMD1168), respectively. We investigated the rHSA-hFGF21 expression levels in three different strains and screened an engineered strain X33-pPIC9K-rHSA-hFGF21 with the highest expression level. To improve the production efficiency of rHSA-hFGF21, we optimized the shake flask fermentation conditions, such as the OD value, methanol concentration and induction time. After purification by hollow fiber membrane separation, Blue affinity chromatography and Q ion exchange chromatography, the purity of the rHSA-hFGF21 protein obtained was 98.18%. Compared to hFGF21, the biostabilities of rHSA-hFGF21, including their resistance to temperature and trypsinization were significantly enhanced, and its plasma half-life was extended by about 27.6 times. Moreover, the fusion protein rHSA-hFGF21 at medium and high concentration showed a better ability to promote glucose uptake after 24 h of stimulation in vitro. In vivo animal studies showed that rHSA-hFGF21 exhibited a better long-term hypoglycemic effect than hFGF21 in type 2 diabetic mice. Our results demonstrated a small-scale production of rHSA-hFGF21, which is important for large-scale production and clinical application in the future.
