A-Interferon Structure and Natural Killer Cell Stimulatory Activity1
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
[CANCER RESEARCH 50. 5328-5332, September 1, 1990] a-Interferon Structure and Natural Killer Cell Stimulatory Activity1 Bo-Liang Li,2 Xiao-Xia Zhao,3 Xin-Yuan Liu,2 Hyon Suk Kim, Karel Raska, Jr., John R. Ortaldo, Barbara Schwartz, and Sidney Pestka4 Departments of Molecular Genetics and Microbiology [B.-L. L., X-X. Z.. X-Y. L., B. S., S. P.] and Pathology [H. S. A., A'. R.J, University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey-Robert Wood Johnson Medical School, Piscataway, Sew Jersey 08854, and National Cancer Institute, Frederick Cancer Research Facility, Frederick, Maryland 217011J. R.O.I ABSTRACT chased from New England BioLabs, T4 DNA ligase from International Biotechnologies Inc., polynucleotide kinase and deoxyribonucleotide Expression vectors for human a-interferon (Hu-IFN-a) .11. a site- triphosphates from P-L Biochemicals, and [«-"SjATP and [7-12P]ATP specific mutant |Ser"6]Hu-IFN-aJl, and Hu-IFN-aJ/C or Hu-IFN-aC/ from Amersham Corporation. J hybrids were constructed and expressed in Escherichìacoli. These Oligonucleotide-directed Site-specific Mutagenesis. M13mp8 Rf interferons and others were purified by immunoaffinity chromatography DN A was digested with £coRIand Hindi (Fig. 1) and then precipitated with a monoclonal antibody against human a-interferon. Their antiviral by equal volumes of 13% polyethylene glycol/1.6 M NaCl (9). The activity and ability to stimulate natural killer cell activity were determined precipitate was dissolved in 0.01 M Tris •HCl,pH 7.5-1.0 IHMEDTA) in comparison to several other human interferons. These results provide and ligated to the J689 fragment from the Hu-IFN-aJl gene (1, 10, some insight into structure-activity relationships for stimulating natural 11) under the following conditions: 100 ng of M13mpl8 Rf DNA killer cells and confirm our previous conclusions that antiviral activity vector fragment (EcoRl/Hincl\), 10-40 ng of fragment J689, and 0.9 cannot be used to predict other activities for an individual IFN-a species. units of T4 DNA ligase in 10 ¿ilofligation buffer (supplied by Inter The observations suggest that the tertiary structure rather than any national Biotechnologies) was incubated at 12°Cfor 3 h; then an specific linear sequence of amino acids regulates the ability of the additional 1.8 units of T4 DNA ligase were added and kept at room interferons to stimulate natural killer cell activity. temperature overnight. The reaction products were transfected into E. coli JM101 as described previously (12, 13). The transfected bacterium mixture with 10 Mlof 100 mM IPTG, 50 n\ of 2% X-gal, 0.2 ml of fresh INTRODUCTION exponentially growing E. coli JM101, and 3 ml of soft agar at 45°C A number of Hu-IFN-a5 molecules have been expressed in was then plated onto nutrient agar and cultured at 37°Covernight. Escherichia coli and purified (see Refs. 1 and 2 and citations White individual plaques were picked and grown in 3 ml of YT medium containing 10 p\ of fresh exponential culture of E. coli JM101 at 37°C therein). The antiviral, antiproliferative, and natural killer cell stimulatory activity (NK activity) of each a-interferon appeared for about 8-10 h. The culture was centrifuged in an Eppendorf micro- to vary independently with the ratio of antiviral:antiproliferative fuge for 10 min. The supernatant and cell pellet were used to prepare single-stranded DNA (14) as a template for the site-specific mutagenesis or antiviral:NK activity differing greatly between the interferon molecules (3-7). Hu-IFN-aJ was found to lack the ability to (Fig. 1) and the replicative form DNA was used for obtaining the J697 fragment with the £c0RIand Pst\ restriction endonucleases (Fig. 2), stimulate the biological activity of natural killer cells (6). The respectively. structure of Hu-IFN-aJ has been compared with other «-inter Site-specific mutagenesis of the Hu-IFN-aJ 1 gene inserted into ferons, and it was found that the amino acids Arg10, Glu35, the M13mpl8 phage was performed by the method of Smith and Gil- Glu40, His45, Phe"6, and Met"2 of Hu-IFN-aJ were markedly Ham (15) except for the use of acid phenol extraction (16) instead different from the other a-interferons which stimulate natural of ultracentrifugation for enrichment of double-stranded DNA. killer cell activity (6). Thus, it was predicted that amino acids The 18mer oligodeoxyribonucleotide, GCCAGGATGGAGTCCTCA, which contains one changed base, the underlined "G," was synthesized in one or more of these six positions determine the ability of a-interferon to stimulate natural killer cells (5-7). In order to by the phosphoramidite method (17, 18) and used both as primer for site-specific mutagenesis and as probe for screening the mutant by dot determine those amino acids which are responsible for the lack blot hybridization at different temperatures (15). The other synthetic of natural killer cell activity of IFN-aJ, a series of interferons 20meroIigodeoxyribonucleotide,5'd(CTCATGATTTCTGCTCTGAC) was constructed and expressed in E. coli. The details of these 3' (19), was used as primer for DNA sequencing to confirm further the constructions as well as the activities of these interferons are correct mutation. reported in this communication. Construction of Various Expression Plasmids. The DNA fragments C234, C701, C566 (from plasmid pIFN-aC), J234, J379 (from plasmid pIFN-«Jl)(l, 10, 11), J577 (from phage Ml3mpJl), and J577[Ser"6] MATERIALS AND METHODS (from phage M13mpJ 116s") were obtained by digestion with the proper Plasmids, Enzymes, and Reagents. Plasmids were prepared by the restriction endonucleases (Figs. 2 and 3) and then separated on a 0.6% alkaline extraction method (8). Restriction endonucleases were pur- low melting point agarose gel. Plasmid pIFN-«C was digested with Xbal and Pstl restriction endonucleases to isolate the vector fragment Received 2/14/90; revised 5/8/90. containing the trp promoter and a tetracycline resistance gene (Fig. 2). The costs of publication of this article were defrayed in part by the payment of page charges. This article must therefore be hereby marked advertisement in The various expression plasmids were constructed by joining three accordance with 18 U.S.C. Section 1734 solely to indicate this fact. fragments together (Fig. 3) under the following conditions: 10 ng of 1This research was supported in part by grants AI-25914 and CA-46465 to smaller fragment (C234, J234, or J379), 20 ng of larger fragment Sidney Pestka and grants AI-25914 and CA-21196 to Karel Raska. Jr.. from the (C701, J577, or C566), 100 ng of vector fragment (Xbal/Pstl), and 8 N1H. * Present address: Shanghai Institute of Biochemistry. Academia Sinica. 320 units of T4 DNA ligase in a total volume of 200 n\ were mixed and Yue-Yang Road. Shanghai. China. incubated at 16°Cfor 24 h. The reaction mixture was used for trans 3Present address: Institute of Virology. China National Centre for Preventive formation of E. coli MM294 (20). The transformed bacteria were Medicine. Beijing. China. cultured on agar plates containing tetracycline at 37°Covernight to ' To whom requests for reprints should be addressed, at Department of Molecular Genetics. UMDNJ-Robert Wood Johnson Medical School. 675 Hoes obtain the individual colonies. Lane, Piscataway, NJ 08854-5635. The individual colonies were grown in YT medium containing 12.5 5The abbreviations used are: Hu-IFN-a. human a-interferon: NK, natural Mgof tetracycline/ml of medium at 37°Covernight and used to prepare killer cell: Arg. arginine: Glu. glutamic acid: His, histidine: Phe. phenylalanine: plasmids by the alkaline extraction method (8). For identification, the Met, methionine: Ser. serine; Gin, glutamine; Lys, lysine; E:T, effectontarget ratio; Rf. replicative form; IPTG, isopropyl /i-D-thiogalactoside; X-gal, 5-bromo- digestion of plasmid DNA with the proper restriction endonucleases 4-chloro-3-indolyl-á-D-galactos¡de. and then analysis on 1% agarose gels were performed as described 5328 Downloaded from cancerres.aacrjournals.org on September 30, 2021. © 1990 American Association for Cancer Research. NATURAL KILLER CELL ACTIVITY OF INTERFERONS Ecciti BsmHI Pill HUtflll EcoRI EcoRI scribed before (3, 27-29). The following human interferons were puri fied as described above with their specific activities given in parentheses: Hu-IFN-aA (3 x 10" units/mg), Hu-IFN-aD (3 x IO7 units/mg), Hu- IFN-aA/D(Sg/) (6 x IO7units/nig), Hu-IFN-aC (1.5 x 10s units/mg), Hu-IFN-aJl(6.5x 10"units/mg), [Ser"6]Hu-IFN-aJl (1.4x 10" units/ mg), Hu-IFN-aJ (9.3 x IO7 units/mg). Hu-IFN-aC,_75/Jl70-166 (9.2 x IO7units/mg), [Ser"6]Hu-IFN-aC,_75/-n76-166(8.9 x IO7units/mg), Hu- IFN-aJ,.m/C^W^m/i) (1.7 x 10" units/mg), and Hu-IFN-aJ,_75/ C76-i66(fnu) (1.1 x 10' units/mg). The specific activities of Hu-IFN- aA, -aD, -aA/D, and -a} were determined as previously reported (3, 6, 7, 27, 28). Protein concentration for the remainder of the interferons was determined by a new ultramicroassay, which is able to detect picograms (allomóles) of prolein.6 The amino acid sequences lhal dislinguish ihese interferon species from others are shown in Fig. 4 and the amino acid sequences of Hu-IFN-aA, -aD, -aC, -aj and -ajl in Fig. 5. Interferon Assays. Interferon assays were performed wilh a cylo- palhic effecl inhibilion assay as previously described (30) wilh bovine MDBK cells and vesicular stomatitis virus. All interferon tilers are expressed in international unils as determined by comparison wilh Ihe Hu-IFN-aA reference slandard GxaOl-901-535 (31) supplied by Ihe Research Resources Branch, Nalional Inslilule of Allergy and Infec tious Diseases, NIH, Bethesda, MD.