• Bulletin of the Korean Chemical Society
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• v.22 no.12
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• pp.1361-1365
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• 2001

Recombinant immunotoxins are hybrid cytotoxic proteins designed to selectively kill cancer cells. A divalent immunotoxins, [B3(FabH1)-PE38]2, was constructed by recombining Fab domain of B3 antibody as a cell-targeting domain and Pseudo monas exotoxin A (PE) as a cytotoxic domain. Monoclonal antibody, B3, is the murine antibody (IgG1k) directed against Lewis Y-related carbohydrate antigens, which are abundant on the surface of many carcinomas. Fab fragment of this antibody was used in this study with the modified hinge sequence where last two cysteines out of three were mutated to serine. PE is a 66 kDa bacterial toxin that kills eukaryotic cells by inhibiting protein synthesis with ADP ribosylation of ribosomal elongation factor 2 (EF2). Fc region of B3 antibody was substituted with the truncated form of PE (38 kDa, PE38) on DNA level. [B3(FabH1)-PE38]2 was formed by disulfide bond between cysteines in the modified hinge region of B3(FabH1)-PE38. Each polypeptide for recombinant immunotoxins was overexpressed in Escherichia coli and collected as inclusion bodies. Each inclusion body was solubilized and refolded, and cytotoxic effects were measured. Divalent immunotoxins, [B3(FabH1)-PE38]2, had ID50 values of about 10 ng/mL on A431 cell lines and about 4 ng/mL on CRL1739 cell lines. Control immunotoxins, B3(scFv)-PE40, had ID50 values of about 28 ng/mL on A431 cell lines and about 41 ng/mL on CRL1739 cell lines. Divalent immunotoxins, [B3(FabH1)-PE38]2, had higher cytotoxic effects than B3(scFv)-PE40 control immunotoxins.

• Journal of Microbiology and Biotechnology
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• v.16 no.7
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• pp.1097-1103
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• 2006

The divalent antibody-toxins are expected to have increased binding avidities to target cells because of the two cell-binding domains. However, previous studies showed that the refolding yield of divalent antibody-toxin is very low, and it is assumed that homodimer formation of antibody-toxin is strongly interfered by the repulsion between the two large toxin domains that come close to each other during dimer formation. In this study, B3 antibody was used as a model antibody, and its Fab domain was used to construct three different kinds of Fab divalent molecules, $[B3(Fab)-toxin]_{2}$. The monomer Fab-toxin molecules were made by fusing the Fab domain of monoclonal antibody B3 to PE38, a truncated mutant form of Pseudomonas exotoxin (PE), and a connecting sequence that contained spacer amino acid sequence (G4S)n (n=l, 2, 3) was inserted between Fab and PE38. The prepared divalent molecules were $[Fab-S\;1,\;2,\;3-PE38]_{2}\;(=[Fab-SKPCIST-KAS(G_{4}S)nGGPE-PE38]_{2}\;(n=1,\;2,\;3))$, and they are derivatives of previously studied $[Fab-H2cys-PE38]_{2}\;(=[Fab-SKPCIST-KASGGPE-PE38]_{2})$. In $[Fab-Sl,\;2,\;3-PE38]_{2}$, two Fab-S1, 2, 3-PE38 monomers were covalently linked by the disulfide bond bridge made from cysteine in the -SKPCIST- sequence. The insertion of spacer amino acids after the disulfide bridge resulted in a 12-18 fold higher yield of dimer formation than previously constructed $[Fab-Hlcys-PZ38]_{2}[7]$, 3-4-fold higher than $[Fab-ext-PZ38]_{2}[25]$. These two molecules have less amino acid spacer sequence between the disulfide bridge and PE38 domain. The design of $[Fab-PE38]_{2}$ in this study gave molecules with a higher refolding yield. The results of cytotoxicity assay showed a higher cytotoxic effect of these divalent molecules than that of the monovalent scFv-PE38 molecule.

• Journal of Microbiology and Biotechnology
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• v.33 no.4
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• pp.430-440
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• 2023

The type three secretion system (T3SS) is a major virulence system of Pseudomonas aeruginosa (P. aeruginosa). The effector protein Exotoxin S (ExoS) produced by P. aeruginosa is secreted into the host cells via the T3SS. For the purpose of an experiment on inhibitors with regard to ExoS secretion, we developed a sandwich-type enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) system. Quercetin was selected because it has a prominent ExoS inhibition effect and also is known to have anti-inflammatory and antioxidant effects on mammalian cells. In this study, we investigated the effects of quercetin on the expression and secretion of ExoS using ELISA and Western blot analysis methods. The results showed that the secretion of ExoS was significantly decreased by 10 and 20 µM of quercetin. Also, popB, popD, pscF, and pcrV which are composed of the T3SS needle, are reduced by quercetin at the mRNA level. We also confirmed the inhibitory effect of quercetin on cytokines (IL-6, IL-1β, and IL-18) in P. aeruginosa-infected H292 cells by real-time polymerase chain reaction (PCR) and ELISA. Collectively, quercetin inhibits the secretion of ExoS by reducing both ExoS production and the expression of the needle protein of T3SS. Furthermore, these results suggest that quercetin has the potential to be used as an anti-toxic treatment for the inflammatory disease caused by P. aeruginosa infection.

• Journal of Microbiology and Biotechnology
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• v.16 no.7
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• pp.1104-1110
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• 2006

Recombinant antibody-toxin is a bifunctional protein that binds and kills a target cell expressing a specific antigen on the surface of the cell, and its structure is chimeric, in which a toxin is fused to an antigen-binding domain such as scFv or Fab. Divalent antibody-toxin molecules showed higher cytotoxicities against cancer cell lines than monovalent molecules. However, the yields of the divalent molecules were very low. In this study, we introduced the CH2, CH3, or CH2-CH3 (=Fc) domain of antibody in the middle of the Fab-toxin between the hinge region of human IgG1 and the toxin domain to increase the yield. The covalently bonded dimer could be formed by three disulfide bridges from cysteine residues in the hinge region. The molecule with the CH3 domain showed about 3-fold higher dimerization yield than previously constructed Fab-toxin molecules, while maintaining the cytotoxic activity comparable to that of scFv-toxin. However, the introduction of CH2 or Fc domain to the same position showed little effect on the dimerization yield. We also observed that the introduction of the CH3 region made it possible to form noncovalently associated dimer molecules.