Bacterial production and structure-functional validation of a recombinant antigen-binding fragment (Fab) of an anti-cancer therapeutic antibody targeting epidermal growth factor receptor.

Fragment engineering of monoclonal antibodies (mAbs) has emerged as an excellent paradigm to develop highly efficient therapeutic and/or diagnostic agents. Engineered mAb fragments can be economically produced in bacterial systems using recombinant DNA technologies. In this work, we established recombinant production in Escherichia coli for monovalent antigen-binding fragment (Fab) adopted from a clinically used anticancer mAB drug cetuximab targeting epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR). Recombinant DNA constructs were designed to express both polypeptide chains comprising Fab in a single vector and to secrete them to bacterial periplasmic space for efficient folding. Particularly, a C-terminal engineering to confer an interchain disulfide bond appeared to be able to enhance its heterodimeric integrity and EGFR-binding activity. Conformational relevance of the purified final product was validated by mass spectrometry and crystal structure at 1.9 Å resolution. Finally, our recombinant cetuximab-Fab was found to have strong binding affinity to EGFR overexpressed in human squamous carcinoma model (A431) cells. Its binding ability was comparable to that of cetuximab. Its EGFR-binding affinity was estimated at approximately 0.7 nM of Kd in vitro, which was quite stronger than the binding affinity of natural ligand EGF. Hence, the results validate that our construction could serve as an efficient platform to produce a recombinant cetuximab-Fab with a retained antigen-binding functionality.

Identification of a novel anti-apoptotic E3 ubiquitin ligase that ubiquitinates antagonists of inhibitor of apoptosis proteins SMAC, HtrA2, and ARTS.

Identification of new anti-apoptotic genes is important for understanding the molecular mechanisms underlying apoptosis and tumorigenesis. The present study identified a novel anti-apoptotic gene named AREL1, which encodes a HECT (homologous to E6-AP carboxyl terminus) family E3 ubiquitin ligase. AREL1 interacted with and ubiquitinated IAP antagonists such as SMAC, HtrA2, and ARTS. However, AREL1 was cytosolic and did not localize to nuclei or mitochondria. The interactions between AREL1 and the IAP antagonists were specific for apoptosis-stimulated cells, in which the IAP antagonists were released into the cytosol from mitochondria. Furthermore, the ubiquitination and degradation of SMAC, HtrA2, and ARTS were significantly enhanced in AREL1-expressing cells following apoptotic stimulation, indicating that AREL1 binds to and ubiquitinates cytosolic but not mitochondria-associated forms of IAP antagonists. Furthermore, the anti-apoptotic role of AREL1-mediated degradation of SMAC, HtrA2, and ARTS was shown by simultaneous knockdown of three IAP antagonists, which caused the inhibition of caspase-3 cleavage, XIAP degradation, and induction of apoptosis. Therefore, the present study suggests that AREL1-mediated ubiquitination and degradation of cytosolic forms of three IAP antagonists plays an important role in the regulation of apoptosis.