N-Linked glycosylation of antibody fragments in Escherichia coli

Bioconjug Chem. 2011 Mar 16;22(3):488-96. doi: 10.1021/bc100511k. Epub 2011 Feb 14.

Abstract

Glycosylation is the predominant protein modification to diversify the functionality of proteins. In particular, N-linked protein glycosylation can increase the biophysical and pharmacokinetic properties of therapeutic proteins. However, the major challenges in studying the consequences of protein glycosylation on a molecular level are caused by glycan heterogeneities of currently used eukaryotic expression systems, but the discovery of the N-linked protein glycosylation system in the ε-proteobacterium Campylobacter jejuni and its functional transfer to Escherichia coli opened up the possibility to produce glycoproteins in bacteria. Toward this goal, we elucidated whether antibody fragments, a potential class of therapeutic proteins, are amenable to bacterial N-linked glycosylation, thereby improving their biophysical properties. We describe a new strategy for glycoengineering and production of quantitative amounts of glycosylated scFv 3D5 at high purity. The analysis revealed the presence of a homogeneous N-glycan that significantly increased the stability and the solubility of the 3D5 antibody fragment. The process of bacterial N-linked glycosylation offers the possibility to specifically address and alter the biophysical properties of proteins.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Amino Acid Sequence
  • Animals
  • Antigens / immunology
  • Escherichia coli / metabolism*
  • Glycoproteins / immunology
  • Glycoproteins / metabolism
  • Glycosylation
  • Humans
  • Male
  • Mice
  • Models, Molecular
  • Molecular Sequence Data
  • Nitrogen / metabolism*
  • Polysaccharides / metabolism
  • Protein Conformation
  • Protein Engineering
  • Single-Chain Antibodies / chemistry
  • Single-Chain Antibodies / genetics
  • Single-Chain Antibodies / metabolism*
  • Single-Chain Antibodies / pharmacokinetics
  • Solubility

Substances

  • Antigens
  • Glycoproteins
  • Polysaccharides
  • Single-Chain Antibodies
  • Nitrogen