Wang Lei, Li Xin, Yuan Lin, Wang Hongwei, Chen Hong, Brash John L
The Key Lab of Health Chemistry and Molecular Diagnosis of Suzhou, Department of Polymer Science and Engineering, College of Chemistry, Chemical Engineering and Materials Science, Soochow University, 199 Ren'ai Road, Suzhou, 215123, P. R. China.
J Mater Chem B. 2015 Jan 21;3(3):498-504. doi: 10.1039/c4tb01741b. Epub 2014 Nov 24.
Maintaining the protein activity and stability under acidic conditions is important in bioengineering and biomedical applications. Polyelectrolyte conjugation as a means of stabilizing proteins has received much recent attention. Retention of protein activity, and especially, improvement of protein stability by minimizing the number of polymer chains in the conjugate, as well as by choosing the optimal site for conjugation, is critical in practical applications. In this research, the cationic polyelectrolyte poly(2-(dimethylamino)ethyl methacrylate) (pDMAEMA) was conjugated to the inorganic pyrophosphatase (PPase) site specifically. Conjugation of pDMAEMA to the specific site N124 on the protein surface led to a significant increase in activity at acidic pH. At pH 4.0, the activity of the pDMAEMA-conjugated protein was increased 3-fold relative to the unconjugated one. Dynamic light scattering (DLS) measurements showed that the aggregation state of the protein depended on the polymer charge as the pH was varied. Protein aggregation at low pH was prevented by pDMAEMA conjugation, resulting in an increase in protein stability under acidic conditions. The conjugate retained 60% of its initial activity after 4 h at pH 4.0, whereas the unconjugated protein lost 40% of its initial activity within 15 min at this pH. These results suggest an approach for preserving the protein activity and stability at low pH based on site-specific polyelectrolyte conjugation to the protein surface, thereby providing a new strategy for expanding the use of proteins in an acidic environment.
在生物工程和生物医学应用中,保持蛋白质在酸性条件下的活性和稳定性至关重要。作为一种稳定蛋白质的手段,聚电解质共轭最近受到了广泛关注。在实际应用中,保持蛋白质活性,尤其是通过减少共轭物中聚合物链的数量以及选择最佳共轭位点来提高蛋白质稳定性,是至关重要的。在本研究中,阳离子聚电解质聚甲基丙烯酸2-(二甲氨基)乙酯(pDMAEMA)被特异性地共轭到无机焦磷酸酶(PPase)位点。pDMAEMA与蛋白质表面特定位点N124的共轭导致在酸性pH值下活性显著增加。在pH 4.0时,pDMAEMA共轭蛋白的活性相对于未共轭蛋白增加了3倍。动态光散射(DLS)测量表明,随着pH值的变化,蛋白质的聚集状态取决于聚合物电荷。pDMAEMA共轭可防止低pH值下的蛋白质聚集,从而在酸性条件下提高蛋白质稳定性。共轭物在pH 4.0下4小时后保留了其初始活性的60%,而未共轭蛋白在此pH值下15分钟内失去了其初始活性的40%。这些结果表明了一种基于蛋白质表面位点特异性聚电解质共轭来保持蛋白质在低pH值下活性和稳定性的方法,从而为在酸性环境中扩大蛋白质的应用提供了一种新策略。