• Journal of Microbiology and Biotechnology
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• v.18 no.5
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• pp.983-989
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• 2008

Human insulin is a hormone well-known to regulate the blood glucose level. Recombinant preproinsulin, a precursor of authentic insulin, is typically produced in E. coli as an inactive inclusion body, the solubilization of which needs the addition of reducing agents such as $\beta$-mercaptoethanol. To make authentic insulin, recombinant preproinsulin is modified enzymatically by trypsin and carboxypeptidase B. The effects of $\beta$-mercaptoethanol on the formation of human insulin derivatives were investigated in the enzymatic modification by using commercially available human proinsulin as a substrate. Addition of 1 mM $\beta$-mercaptoethanol induced the formation of various insulin derivatives. Among them, the second major one, impurity 3, was found to be identical to the insulin B chain fragment from $Phe_1$ to $Glu_{21}$. Minimization of the formation of insulin derivatives and concomitant improvement of the production yield of human insulin were achieved by the addition of hydrogen peroxide. Hydrogen peroxide bound with $\beta$-mercaptoethanol and thereby reduced the negative effects of $\beta$-mercaptoethanol considerably. Elimination of the impurity 3 and other derivatives by the addition of over 10 mM hydrogen peroxide in the presence of $\beta$-mercaptoethanolled to a 1.3-fold increase in the recovery efficiency of insulin, compared with those for the case without hydrogen peroxide. The positive effects of hydrogen peroxide were also confirmed with recombinant human preproinsulin expressed in recombinant E. coli as an inclusion body.

• Journal of Microbiology and Biotechnology
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• v.26 no.10
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• pp.1781-1789
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• 2016

Glargine insulin is a long-acting insulin analog that helps blood glucose maintenance in patients with diabetes. We constructed the pPT-GI vector to express prepeptide glargine insulin when transformed into Escherichia coli JM109. The transformed E. coli cells were cultured by fed-batch fermentation. The final dry cell mass was 18 g/l. The prepeptide glargine insulin was 38.52% of the total protein. It was expressed as an inclusion body and then refolded to recover the biological activity. To convert the prepeptide into glargine insulin, citraconylation and trypsin cleavage were performed. Using citraconylation, the yield of enzymatic conversion for glargine insulin increased by 3.2-fold compared with that without citraconylation. After the enzyme reaction, active glargine insulin was purified by two types of chromatography (ion-exchange chromatography and reverse-phase chromatography). We obtained recombinant human glargine insulin at 98.11% purity and verified that it is equal to the standard of human glargine insulin, based on High-performance liquid chromatography analysis and Matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization Time-of-Flight Mass Spectrometry. We thus established a production process for high-purity recombinant human glargine insulin and a method to block Arg (B31)-insulin formation. This established process for recombinant human glargine insulin may be a model process for the production of other human insulin analogs.

• Journal of Plant Biotechnology
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• v.40 no.3
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• pp.169-177
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• 2013

Recently, the number of people with diabetes is rapidly increasing, coupled with the fact that the insulin market is remarkably increasing. Therefore, molecular farming for plant-derived pharmaceutical protein production is reported as becoming more attractive than ever. In this study, we carried out experiments step by step for development of recombinant insulin constructs, which were transformed into E. coli system, in vitro transcription and translation system, and tobacco cells. At first, recombinant proinsulin protein was successfully produced in in vitro transcription and translation system with wheat germ extract. After which, recombinant construct of prominiinsulin encoded a fusion protein of 7.8 kDa with trypsin cleavage sites at N terminus and C terminus of minimized C-peptide was tried to in vitro expression using E.coli culture. After purification with His-tag column, the resulting recombinant prominiinsulin protein was processed with trypsin, and then checked insulin biosynthesis by SDS-PAGE and western blot analysis with anti-insulin monoclonal antibody. The immunoreactive product of trypsin-treated miniinsulin was identical to the predicted insulin hexamer. The construct of 35S promoter-driven preprominiinsulin recombinant gene with signal peptide region for ER-targeting and red fluorescence protein gene [N terminus ${\rightarrow}$ tobacco E2 signal peptide ${\rightarrow}$ B-peptide (1-29 AA) ${\rightarrow}$ AAK ${\rightarrow}$ A-peptide (1-21 AA) ${\rightarrow}$ RR ${\rightarrow}$ His6 ${\rightarrow}$ KDEL ${\rightarrow}$ C terminus] was transformed into BY-2 tobacco cells. A polypeptide corresponding to the 38-kDa molecular mass predicted for fusion protein was detected in total protein profiles from transgenic BY-2 cells by western analysis. Therefore, this recombinant preprominiinsulin construct can be used for generation of transgenic tobacco plants producing therapeutic recombinant insulin.

• 한국생물공학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2003.04a
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• pp.34-38
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• 2003

For the production of $B^{30}-homoserine$ insulin analog as a novel anti-diabetic drug, the fermentative study was attempted for the maximal gene expression of HTS-fused $B^{30}-homoserine$ insulin precursor in the recombinant Escherichia coli cells. In a batch fermentation, the maximal production of insulin precursor as much as 38.95 mg/L-h, which occupied more than 12.8% of total cell protein. was achieved when the gene expression was induced by 0.5 mM IPTG at the middle logarithmic growth phase. The HTS-fused $B^{30}-homoserine$ insulin precursor was recovered from a batch culture through the processes of cell harvest, collection of insoluble fraction after sonication and purification by nickel affinity column chromatography. The isolated insulin precursor was 14 mg/L with a recovery yield of 35.9% of expressed gene product. The insulin A and B chain mixture was recovered after the insulin precursor was subjected to CNBr cleavage and purified by nickel affinity column chromatography. The isolated insulin chains were then sulfitolyzed with sodium thiosulfat and sodium tetrathionate, and reconstituted to insulin analog with ${\beta}-mercaptoethanol$, followed by purification with CM-Sepharose C-25 column chromatography.

• Genomics & Informatics
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• v.15 no.4
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• pp.142-146
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• 2017

More effective production of human insulin is important, because insulin is the main medication that is used to treat multiple types of diabetes and because many people are suffering from diabetes. The current system of insulin production is based on recombinant DNA technology, and the expression vector is composed of a preproinsulin sequence that is a fused form of an artificial leader peptide and the native proinsulin. It has been reported that the sequence of the leader peptide affects the production of insulin. To analyze how the leader peptide affects the maturation of insulin structurally, we adapted several in silico simulations using 13 artificial proinsulin sequences. Three-dimensional structures of models were predicted and compared. Although their sequences had few differences, the predicted structures were somewhat different. The structures were refined by molecular dynamics simulation, and the energy of each model was estimated. Then, protein-protein docking between the models and trypsin was carried out to compare how efficiently the protease could access the cleavage sites of the proinsulin models. The results showed some concordance with experimental results that have been reported; so, we expect our analysis will be used to predict the optimized sequence of artificial proinsulin for more effective production.

• Biotechnology and Bioprocess Engineering:BBE
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• v.1 no.1
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• pp.9-12
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• 1996

In order to produce the single chain precursor of a novel human insulin analogue, (B30-Homoserine) insulin, the fermentative behaviors of Escherichia coli JM103 were studied, which harbors pKBA plasmid carrying a hybrid gene in which the gene for a single chain precursor was fused with lacZ gene under tac promoter. The maximal induction of gene expression was achieved when more than 0.05 mM of isopropyl-$\beta$-D-thiogalactopyranoside(IPTG) was supplemented to fermentation medium after 4 h cultivation of E. coli, and followed by longer than 2-h fermentation. The hybrid protein of the single chain insulin precursor was isolated from cytoplasmic inclusion bodies by dissolving in 8M urea solution, and purified through DEAE-Sephacel and Sephadex G-200 column chromatographies with a recovery of 35%. The finally purified hybrid protein showed a single band on sodium dodecyl sulfate-polyacrylamide gel.

• Journal of Animal Science and Technology
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• v.50 no.2
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• pp.177-184
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• 2008

Acid-labile subunit(ALS) is a 85-kDa glycosylated plasma protein which forms a 150-kDa ternary complex with 7.5-kDa insulin-like growth factor(IGF) and 40~45-kDa IGF-binding protein-3. In a previous study, the present authors prepared a porcine ALS(pALS) expression construct by inserting a pALS coding sequence into a plasmid vector following synthesis of the sequence by reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction(RT-PCR). The expression construct, however, was subsequently found to have a mis-sense mutation at two bases of the pALS coding sequence which is presumed to have occurred through a PCR error. In the present study, the correct coding sequence was synthesized by the site-directed mutagenesis and inserted into the pET-28a(+) plasmid expression vector containing the His-tag sequence flanking the last codon of the insert DNA. After induction of the expression construct in E. coli BL21(DE3) cells, the resulting presumptive recombinant peptide was purified by the Ni-affinity chromatography. Upon SDS- PAGE, the affinity-purified peptide was resolved as a single band at a 66-kDa position which is consistent with the expected molecular mass of the presumptive recombinant pALS. Collectively, results indicate that a recombinant pALS peptide was successfully expressed and purified in the present study.

• Biotechnology and Bioprocess Engineering:BBE
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• v.6 no.2
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• pp.144-149
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• 2001

For the production and purification of a single chain human insulin precursor, four types of fusion peptides $\beta$-galactosidase (LacZ), maltose binding protein (MBP), glutathione-S-transferase (GST), and (His)(sub)6-tagged sequence (HTS) were investigated. Recombinant E. coli harboring hybrid genes was cultivated at 37$\^{C}$ for 1h, and gene induction occurred when 0.2mM of isopropyl-D-thiogalactoside (IPTG) was added to the culture broth, except for E. coli BL21 (DE3) pLysS harboring a pET-BA cultivation with 1.0mM IPTG, followed by a longer than 4h batch fermentation respectively. DEAE-Sphacel and Sephadex G-200 gel filtration chromatography, amylose affinity chromatography, glutathione-sepharose 4B affinity chromatography, and a nickel chelating affinity chromatography system as a kind of immobilized metal ion affinity chromatography (IMAC) were all employed for the purification of a single chain human insulin precursor. The recovery yields of the HTS-fused, GST-fused, MBP-fused, and LacZ-fused single chain human insulin precursors resulted in 47%, 20%, 20%, and 18% as the total protein amounts respectively. These results show that a higher recovery yield of the finally purified recombinant peptides was achieved when affinity column chromatography was employed and when the fused peptide had a smaller molecular weight. In addition the pET expression system gave the highest productivity of a fused insulin precursor due to a two-step regulation of the gene expression, and the HTS-fused system provided the highest recovery of a fused insulin precursor based on a simple and specific separation using the IMAC technique.

• The Korean Journal of Physiology and Pharmacology
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• v.17 no.2
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• pp.157-162
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• 2013

Insulin-like growth factor binding proteins (IGFBPs) are important components of insulin growth factor (IGF) signaling pathways. One of the binding proteins, IGFBP-5, enhances the actions of IGF-1, which include the enhanced proliferation of smooth muscle cells. In the present study, we examined the expression and the biological effects of IGFBP-5 in vascular smooth muscle cells (VSMCs) from spontaneously hypertensive rats (SHR) and Wistar Kyoto rats (WKY). The levels of IGFBP-5 mRNA and protein were found to be higher in the VSMC from SHR than in those from WKY. Treatment with recombinant IGFBP-5-stimulated VSMC proliferation in WKY to the levels observed in SHR. In the VSMCs of WKY, incubation with angiotensin (Ang) II or IGF-1 dose dependently increased IGFBP-5 protein levels. Transfection with IGFBP-5 siRNA reduced VSMC proliferation in SHR to the levels exhibited in WKY. In addition, recombinant IGFBP-5 significantly up-regulated ERK1/2 phosphorylation in the VSMCs of WKY as much as those of SHR. Concurrent treatment with the MEK1/2 inhibitors, PD98059 or U0126 completely inhibited recombinant IGFBP-5-induced VSMC proliferation in WKY, while concurrent treatment with the phosphatidylinositol-3 kinase inhibitor, LY294002, had no effect. Furthermore, knockdown with IGFBP-5 siRNA inhibited ERK1/2 phosphorylation in VSMC of SHR. These results suggest that IGFBP-5 plays a role in the regulation of VSMC proliferation via ERK1/2 MAPK signaling in hypertensive rats.

• Asian-Australasian Journal of Animal Sciences
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• v.17 no.8
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• pp.1062-1068
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• 2004

Leptin has a major role in the regulation of food intake and energy homeostasis. In addition, leptin participates in many physiological functions including regulation of lipid metabolism. Bovine recombinant leptin protein was produced in E. coli cells in order to understand function of leptin in the regulation of lipid metabolism. The leptin expression vector was constructed in pGEX-4T-3 vector and transformed into E. coli BL21 cells. Expression of the GST-leptin fusion protein was induced with IPTG. The fusion protein was purified using glutathione sepharose 4B batch method, and the recombinant leptin was eluted after thrombin protease digestion. The effect of leptin on glucose transport was examined in the differentiated adipocytes of 3T3-L1 cells. Leptin had no effect on basal and insulin-stimulated glucose transport in 3T3-L1 cells (p>0.05). Effect of recombinant leptin on glucose and acetate transport was examined in adipose tissues of Korean cattle (Hanwoo). Insulin stimulated glucose transport in both intramuscular and subcutaneous adipose tissues (p<0.05), but leptin did not affect glucose transport in both adipose tissues (p>0.05). Insulin stimulated acetate transport in bovine adipose tissues (p<0.05), but leptin did not affect acetate transport (p>0.05). Northern and RT-PCR analyses showed that mRNA levels of uncoupling protein-2 were increased by leptin treatment in 3T3-L1 cells without statistical difference (p>0.05). In conclusion, bovine recombinant leptin did not affect glucose and acetate transport in both 3T3-L1 adipocytes and bovine adipose tissues, while it stimulates UCP-2 mRNA expression in 3T3-L1 cells.