Department of Pharmacology and Toxicology, University of Louisville School of Medicine, Louisville, KY 40202, USA.
Center for Predictive Medicine, University of Louisville School of Medicine, Louisville, KY 40202, USA.
Molecules. 2020 May 31;25(11):2562. doi: 10.3390/molecules25112562.
Mistletoe () extracts have been used as alternative and complementary therapeutic preparations in multiple cancers for decades. Mistletoe lectins (ML-I, ML-II, and ML-III) are considered to be the main anticancer components of such preparations. In the present study, ML-II was transiently expressed in using the pEAQ-HT expression system. Expression levels of up to 60 mg/kg of the infiltrated plant tissue were obtained, and a three-fold increase was achieved by adding the endoplasmic reticulum (ER) retention signal KDEL to the native ML-II sequence. The native protein containing His-tag and KDEL was purified by immobilized metal affinity chromatography (IMAC) and gel filtration. We found that the recombinant ML-II lectin was glycosylated and retained its carbohydrate-binding activity. In addition, we demonstrated that plant produced ML-II displayed anticancer activity in vitro, inhibiting non-small cell lung cancer H460 and A549 cells with EC50 values of 4 and 3.5 µg/mL, respectively. Annexin V-448A and PI double staining revealed that cell cytotoxicity occurred via apoptosis induction. These results indicate that ML-II transiently expressed in plants is a promising candidate as an anticancer agent, although further optimization of production and purification methods is required to enable further in vitro testing, as well as in vivo assays.
槲寄生提取物作为替代和补充治疗制剂在多种癌症中应用了几十年。槲寄生凝集素(ML-I、ML-II 和 ML-III)被认为是此类制剂的主要抗癌成分。在本研究中,使用 pEAQ-HT 表达系统在 中瞬时表达 ML-II。获得了高达 60mg/kg 渗透植物组织的表达水平,并且通过将内质网(ER)保留信号 KDEL 添加到天然 ML-II 序列中,实现了三倍的增加。含有 His 标签和 KDEL 的天然蛋白通过固定化金属亲和层析(IMAC)和凝胶过滤进行纯化。我们发现重组 ML-II 凝集素发生了糖基化,并且保留了其碳水化合物结合活性。此外,我们证明植物产生的 ML-II 在体外显示出抗癌活性,对非小细胞肺癌 H460 和 A549 细胞的 EC50 值分别为 4 和 3.5μg/mL。Annexin V-448A 和 PI 双重染色显示细胞毒性通过诱导细胞凋亡发生。这些结果表明,在 植物中瞬时表达的 ML-II 是一种很有前途的抗癌候选物,尽管需要进一步优化生产和纯化方法,以便进行进一步的体外测试以及体内试验。