Construction, expression and functional characterization of the β-lactamase with αv integrin ligands

Protein Pept Lett. 2010 Dec;17(12):1562-5. doi: 10.2174/0929866511009011562.

Abstract

Antibody-directed enzyme prodrug therapy (ADEPT) delivers chemotherapeutic agents at high concentration to tumor tissues while minimizing systemic drug exposure. β-Lactamases are particularly useful enzymes for ADEPT systems due to their unique substrate specificity, which allows the activation of a variety of lactam-based prodrugs with minimal interference from mammalian enzymes. This study used integrin α(v)β(3) as a target for tumor-specific delivery of β-Lactamase. β-Lactamase was fused with ACDCRGDCFCG peptide (RGD4C) by recombinant DNA technology. Likewise, this study cloned a fused cDNA and successfully expressed active recombinant protein in E. coli purified with Ni-NTA resin. After purification, β-Lactamase moiety showed the expected size of 42 kDa on Tricine-SDS-PAGE, and was further confirmed by Western blotting. Based on flow cytometric analysis, the purified protein was found to be active for specificity in breast cancer cell line, MCF-7, which supports the utility of the protein as an agent for ADEPT.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Drug Delivery Systems
  • Humans
  • Integrin alphaVbeta3 / metabolism*
  • Ligands
  • Oligopeptides / genetics*
  • Recombinant Fusion Proteins / genetics
  • Recombinant Fusion Proteins / metabolism*
  • Tumor Cells, Cultured
  • beta-Lactamases / genetics
  • beta-Lactamases / metabolism*

Substances

  • Integrin alphaVbeta3
  • Ligands
  • Oligopeptides
  • Recombinant Fusion Proteins
  • beta-Lactamases