Mammalian expression of isotopically labeled proteins for NMR spectroscopy

Adv Exp Med Biol. 2012:992:197-211. doi: 10.1007/978-94-007-4954-2_11.

Abstract

NMR spectroscopic characterization of biologically interesting proteins generally requires the incorporation of (15)N/(13)C and/or (2)H stable isotopes. While prokaryotic incorporation systems are regularly used, mammalian ones are not: of the nearly 9,000 NMR macromolecular structures currently deposited in the Protein Data Bank, only a handful (<0.5%) were solved with proteins expressed in mammalian systems. This low number of structures is largely a reflection of the difficulty in producing uniformly labeled, mammalian-expressed proteins. This is unfortunate, as many interesting proteins require mammalian cofactors, chaperons, or post-translational modifications such as N-linked glycosylation, and mammalian cells have the necessary machinery to produce them correctly. Here we describe recent advances in mammalian expression, including an efficient adenoviral vector-based system, for the production of isotopically enriched proteins. This system allows for the expression of mammalian proteins and their complexes, including proteins that require post-translational modifications. We describe how this system can produce isotopically labeled (15)N and (13)C post-translationally modified proteins, such as the outer domain of HIV-1 gp120, which has 15 sites of N-linked glycosylation. Selective amino-acid labeling is also described. These developments should reduce barriers to the determination of NMR structures with isotopically labeled proteins from mammalian expression systems.

Publication types

  • Research Support, N.I.H., Intramural
  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't
  • Review

MeSH terms

  • Adenoviridae / genetics
  • Animals
  • Humans
  • Isotope Labeling / methods*
  • Nuclear Magnetic Resonance, Biomolecular / methods*
  • Protein Processing, Post-Translational
  • Recombinant Proteins / biosynthesis*
  • Recombinant Proteins / chemistry

Substances

  • Recombinant Proteins