An enhanced and scalable process for the purification of SIV Gag-specific MHC tetramer.

A recently developed method for the identification and quantitation of antigen-specific T lymphocytes involves the use of complexes of biotinylated major histocompatibility complex (MHC) and avidin conjugated to a fluorescent reporter group. This complex, dubbed the "tetramer," binds to antigen-specific T lymphocytes in vitro, which can then be sorted and counted by fluorescence-activated flow cytometry to measure immune response. Our research has focused on developing the purification process for preparing tetramer reagent. Our goal was to reengineer a published lab-scale purification process to reduce the number of processing steps and to make the process scalable. In our reengineered process, recombinant MHC alpha chain is isolated from Escherichia coli as inclusion bodies by tangential flow filtration. The purified MHC alpha chain is refolded with beta-2-microglobulin and the target peptide antigen to form the class I MHC. The resulting MHC is purified by hydrophobic interaction chromatography (HIC) and biotinylated enzymatically, and the biotinylated MHC is purified by a second HIC step. The tetramer is prepared by mixing biotinylated MHC with an avidin-fluorophore conjugate. The tetramer is further purified to remove any excess MHC or avidin components. Analysis by flow cytometry confirmed that the tetramers generated by this new process gave bright staining and specific binding to CD3+/CD8+ cells of vaccinated monkeys and led to results that were equivalent to those generated with tetramer produced by the original process.

Alteration of the isoform composition of plasma-membrane-associated rat sperm alpha-L-fucosidase during late epididymal maturation: comparative characterization of the acidic and neutral isoforms.

In a previous study, evidence was provided for the presence of a novel plasma-membrane-associated neutral-pH-optimum alpha-L-fucosidase in rat sperm. In the present study, rat sperm alpha-L-fucosidase was characterized during epididymal maturation. The pH 7 activity optimum of alpha-L-fucosidase and its subunit composition (one or two closely spaced immunoreactive protein bands of about 53+/-2 kDa) did not appear to change during transit through the epididymis. Isoelectric focusing of alpha-L-fucosidase indicated the presence of a major isoform (B) with a pI near 7 in sperm from testis, caput, corpus and the proximal half of the cauda. alpha-L-Fucosidase from sperm from the distal half of the cauda, which contained a significant enrichment of sperm and alpha-L-fucosidase activity, contained isoform B and an additional minor isoform (A) with a pI near 5.2. Isoform B and small amounts of isoform A were present in sperm from the vas deferens. The two fucosidase isoforms present in sperm from the distal cauda were separated by isoelectric focusing and comparatively characterized. They had similar pH-activity curves (with optima near pH 7) and comparable apparent KM values (0.4+/-0.04 mM) for 4-methylumbelliferyl alpha-l-fucopyranoside. Preincubation of the isoforms at different temperatures indicated that isoform A is considerably more thermostable than isoform B. Immunoprecipitation studies using polyclonal antibodies against human liver alpha-L-fucosidase indicated that approx. 90% of the enzymic activity for both isoforms was immunoprecipitable under conditions that immunoprecipitated essentially all the human liver enzyme. Neuraminidase treatment of sperm alpha-L-fucosidase from distal cauda (when compared with the appropriate heat-treated control) led to disappearance of isoform A and a concomitant increase in isoform B. The overall results suggest that isoform A is derived by sialylation of isoform B near the end of epididymal maturation.