High expression of variable domain of heavy-chain antibodies in Expi293F cells with optimized signal peptide and codons.

Shuzhen TAN; Hu DONG; Songjia PAN; Suyu MU; Yongjie CHEN; Yun ZHANG; Shiqi SUN; Huichen GUO

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High expression of variable domain of heavy-chain antibodies in Expi293F cells with optimized signal peptide and codons.

Author: Shuzhen TAN ¹ ; Hu DONG ¹ ; Songjia PAN ¹ ; Suyu MU ¹ ; Yongjie CHEN ¹ ; Yun ZHANG ¹ ; Shiqi SUN ¹ ; Huichen GUO ¹
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1. State Key Laboratory for Animal Disease Control and Prevention, College of Veterinary Medicine, Lanzhou University, Lanzhou Veterinary Research Institute, Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Lanzhou 730000, Gansu, China.
Publication Type:Journal Article
Keywords: codon optimization; expression; signal peptide; variable domain of heavy-chain antibody (VHH)
MeSH: Codon/genetics*; Protein Sorting Signals/genetics*; Escherichia coli/metabolism*; Humans; Recombinant Fusion Proteins/biosynthesis*; Interferon-alpha/metabolism*; Immunoglobulin Heavy Chains/immunology*; Cell Line; Immunoglobulin Variable Region/immunology*
From: Chinese Journal of Biotechnology 2024;40(11):4219-4227
CountryChina
Language:Chinese
Abstract: The variable domain of heavy-chain antibody (VHH) has been developed widely in drug therapy, diagnosis, and research. Escherichia coli is the most popular expression system for VHH production, whereas low bioactivity occurs sometimes. Mammalian cells are one of the most ideal hosts for VHH expression at present. To improve the yield of VHH in Expi293F cells, we optimized the signal peptide (SP) and codons of VHH. Firstly, the fusion protein VHH1-Fc was used to screen SPs. The SP IFN-α2 showed the highest secretion as quantified by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA). Subsequently, codon optimization by improving GC3 and GC content doubled the yield of VHH1 and kept its binding activity to Senecavirus A (SVA). Finally, the mean yields of other 5 VHHs that fused with SP IFN-α2 and codon-optimized were over 191.6 mg/L, and these VHHs had high recovery and high purity in the culture supernatant. This study confirms that SP IFN-α2 and codon optimization could produce VHHs in Expi293F cells efficiently, which provides a reference for the large-scale production of VHHs.