Honrath Steffen, Heussi Miguel, Beckert Lukas, Scherer David, Lim Roderick Y H, Burger Michael, Leroux Jean-Christophe
ETH Zurich, Department of Chemistry and Applied Biosciences, Institute of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Vladimir-Prelog-Weg 3, 8093 Zurich, Switzerland.
Biozentrum and the Swiss Nanoscience Institute, University of Basel, Spitalstrasse 41, 4056 Basel, Switzerland.
Mol Ther Nucleic Acids. 2025 Mar 27;36(2):102526. doi: 10.1016/j.omtn.2025.102526. eCollection 2025 Jun 10.
The TFAMoplex is a nanoparticulate gene delivery system based on the mitochondrial transcription factor A (TFAM) protein, which can be engineered with various functional domains to enhance plasmid DNA transfection. In this study, we aimed at improving the TFAMoplex system by incorporating basic leucine zipper (bZIP) domains, derived from the cyclic AMP (cAMP)-responsive element-binding protein (CREB), which are known to bind DNA upon dimerization. Additionally, we screened bZIP domains of other proteins (i.e., transcription regulator protein BACH1, cyclic AMP-dependent transcription factor ATF-3, and basic leucine zipper transcriptional factor ATF-like BATF) under challenging transfection conditions, identifying the bZIP domain of BACH1, bZIP, as particularly effective in enhancing the TFAMoplex performance, reducing the half-maximal effective concentration by more than 2-fold. We show that bZIP domains facilitate interactions with the cell membrane as single proteins and thus increase the cell association of TFAMoplexes. Finally, we compared the optimized bZIP-TFAMoplex to adeno-associated viruses (AAVs) regarding transfection efficiency and transgene expression levels. While AAVs achieved higher transfection efficiency based on the number of transfected cells, both the original and improved TFAMoplex constructs surpassed AAVs in transgene expression per cell.
TFAMoplex是一种基于线粒体转录因子A(TFAM)蛋白的纳米颗粒基因递送系统,可通过各种功能域进行改造以增强质粒DNA转染。在本研究中,我们旨在通过整合源自环磷酸腺苷(cAMP)反应元件结合蛋白(CREB)的碱性亮氨酸拉链(bZIP)结构域来改进TFAMoplex系统,已知该结构域在二聚化时可结合DNA。此外,我们在具有挑战性的转染条件下筛选了其他蛋白质的bZIP结构域(即转录调节蛋白BACH1、cAMP依赖性转录因子ATF - 3和碱性亮氨酸拉链转录因子ATF样BATF),确定BACH1的bZIP结构域在增强TFAMoplex性能方面特别有效,将半数最大有效浓度降低了2倍以上。我们表明,bZIP结构域作为单一蛋白质促进与细胞膜的相互作用,从而增加TFAMoplexes与细胞的结合。最后,我们在转染效率和转基因表达水平方面将优化后的bZIP - TFAMoplex与腺相关病毒(AAV)进行了比较。虽然基于转染细胞数量,AAV实现了更高的转染效率,但原始和改进的TFAMoplex构建体在每个细胞的转基因表达方面都超过了AAV。
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