Efficient expression of acetylcholine-binding protein from Aplysia californica in Bac-to-Bac system

Biomed Res Int. 2014:2014:691480. doi: 10.1155/2014/691480. Epub 2014 Jul 20.

Abstract

The Bac-to-Bac baculovirus expression system can efficiently produce recombinant proteins, but the system may have to be optimized to achieve high-level expression for different candidate proteins. We reported here the efficient expression of acetylcholine-binding proteins from sea hares Aplysia californica (Ac-AChBP) and a convenient method to monitor protein expression level in this expression system. Three key factors affecting expression of Ac-AChBP were optimized for maximizing the yield, which included the cell density, volume of the infecting baculovirus inoculums, and the culturing time of postinfection. We have found it to reach a high yield of ∼5 mg/L, which needs 55 h incubation after infection at the cell density of 2 × 10(6) cells/mL with an inoculum volume ratio of 1 : 100. The optimized expression system in this study was also applied for expressing another protein Ls-AChBP from Lymnaea stagnalis successfully. Therefore, this established method is helpful to produce high yields of AChBP proteins for X-ray crystallographic structural and functional studies.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Acetylcholine / genetics*
  • Acetylcholine / metabolism
  • Animals
  • Aplysia / genetics*
  • Aplysia / metabolism
  • Baculoviridae
  • Carrier Proteins / biosynthesis*
  • Crystallography, X-Ray
  • Gene Expression Regulation, Viral

Substances

  • Carrier Proteins
  • Acetylcholine