Name: comparison of tobacco host cell protein removal methods by blanching intact plants or by heat treatment of extracts
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We would like to acknowledge Dr. Thomas Rademacher, Alexander Boes and Veronique Bei&#223; for providing the transgenic tobacco seeds, and Ibrahim Al Amedi for cultivating the tobacco plants. The authors wish to thank Dr. Richard M. Twyman for editorial assistance as well as G&#252;ven Edg&#252; for providing the MSP1-19 reference. This work was funded in part by the European Research Council Advanced Grant ''Future-Pharma'', proposal number 269110, the Fraunhofer-Zukunftsstiftung (Fraunhofer Future Foundation) and Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft Internal Programs under Grant No. Attract 125-600164.

1. Cultivate the Tobacco Plants
<ol>
	<li>Flush each mineral wool block with 1 to 2 L of deionized water and subsequently with 1 L of 0.1% [w/v] fertilizer solution. Place one tobacco seed in each mineral wool block and gently flush with 0.25 L of fertilizer solution without washing away the seed 16.</li>
	<li>Cultivate the tobacco plants for 7 weeks in a greenhouse with 70% relative humidity, a 16 hr photoperiod (180 &#181;mol sec&#8722;1 m&#8722;2;&#160;&#955; = ...

<ol>
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The three methods for heat precipitation described above can effectively remove tobacco HCPs prior to any chromatographic purification step 16,17. They complement other strategies that aim to increase initial product purity, e.g., guttation 29, rhizosecretion 30 or centrifugal extraction 31,32, all of which are limited to secreted proteins. However, the heat-based methods can only be used in a meaningful way if the target protein to be purified can withstand the minimu...

Modern healthcare systems increasingly depend on biopharmaceutical proteins 1. Producing these proteins in plants is advantageous due to the low pathogen burden and greater scalability compared to conventional expression systems 2-4. However, the downstream processing (DSP) of plant-derived pharmaceuticals can be challenging because the disruptive extraction procedures result in a high particle burden, with turbidities exceeding 5,000 nephelometric turbidity units (NTUs), and host cell protein (HCP) concentrations often exceeding 95% [m/m] 5,6.
Elaborate clarification procedures are required to remove dispersed particles 7-9, but chromatography equipment is less expensive to operate in bind-and-elute mode during initial product recovery if there is an earlier step for the efficient removal of HCPs 10,11. This can be achieved either by precipitating the target protein using flocculants 12 or low pH 13,14, as well as by causing the HCPs to aggregate. The selective aggregation of ribulose-1,5-bisphosphate carboxylase/oxygenase (RuBisCO), the most abundant HCP in green plants such as tobacco (Nicotiana tabacum), can be promoted by adding polyethylene glycol 15, but this is expensive and incompatible with large-scale manufacturing. Heat treatment has been shown to denature and precipitate more than 95% of tobacco HCPs, while protein malaria vaccine candidates such as Vax8 remain stable in solution 16-18.
Three different approaches were used to achieve the heat-induced precipitation of tobacco HCPs: (i) blanching, i.e., the immersion of intact leaves in hot liquid, (ii) a temperature-controlled stirred vessel, and (iii) a heat exchanger (Figure 1) 16. For intact leaves, blanching achieved the rapid and efficient precipitation of HCPs and was also easy to scale up and compatible with existing large-scale manufacturing processes that include an initial step to wash the plant biomass 19. In contrast, temperature-controlled vessels are already available in some processes and can be used for the thermal treatment of plant extracts 20, but their scalability and energy transfer rate are limited because the surface-to-volume ratio of the tanks is progressively reduced and becomes unsuitable at process scale. A heat exchanger is a technically well-defined alternative to heated stirred vessels but requires an abundant supply of heating and cooling media, e.g., steam and cold water, as well as a tightly controlled volumetric flow rate that is adapted to the heat exchanger geometry and media properties, e.g., the specific heat capacity. This article shows how all three methods can be used for the heat-induced precipitation of tobacco HCPs, and plant HCPs in general. The establishment and operation of each method in a laboratory setting can be used to evaluate their suitability for larger-scale processes. The major challenge is to identify adequate scale-down models and running conditions for each operation that resemble the devices and conditions used during process-scale manufacturing. The data presented here refer to experiments conducted with transgenic tobacco plants expressing the malaria vaccine candidate Vax8 and fluorescent protein DsRed 16, but the method has also been successfully applied to N. benthamiana plants transiently expressing other biopharmaceutical proteins 21.
A design-of-experiments (DoE) approach 22 can facilitate process development, and flocculants 23 can also be beneficial in this context as previously described 8. The main difference between blanching, heated vessels and heat exchangers is that blanching is applied to intact leaves early in the process whereas the others are applied to plant extracts (Figure 1).
<img alt="Figure 1" src="/files/ftp_upload/54343/54343fig1.jpg" /> 
Figure 1: Process Flow Scheme Illustrating the Implementation of Three Different Methods for Tobacco HCP Heat Precipitation. The plant material is washed and homogenized before clarification and purification. The equipment for the blanching step (red) can easily be added to the existing machinery. In contrast, using a stirred vessel (orange) and especially a heat exchanger (blue) requires one or several additional devices and tubing. <a href="https://www.jove.com/files/ftp_upload/54343/54343fig1large.jpg" target="_blank">Please click here to view a larger version of this figure.</a>

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		<tr height="21">
			<td height="21" style="height:21px;width:360px;">Centrifuge 5415D</td>
			<td style="width:195px;">Eppendorf</td>
			<td style="width:119px;">5424 000.410</td>
			<td>Centrifuge</td>
		</tr>
		<tr height="21">
			<td height="21" style="height:21px;width:360px;">Centrifuge tube 15 mL</td>
			<td style="width:195px;">Labomedic</td>
			<td style="width:119px;">2017106</td>
			<td>Reaction tube</td>
		</tr>
		<tr height="21">
			<td height="21" style="height:21px;width:360px;">Centrifuge tube 50 mL self-standing</td>
			<td style="width:195px;">Labomedic</td>
			<td style="width:119px;">1110504</td>
			<td>Reaction tube</td>
		</tr>
		<tr height="21">
			<td height="21" style="height:21px;width:360px;">CM5 chip</td>
			<td style="width:195px;">GE Healthcare</td>
			<td style="width:119px;">BR100012&#160;</td>
			<td>Chip for SPR measurements</td>
		</tr>
		<tr height="21">
			<td height="21" style="height:21px;width:360px;">Cuvette 10x10x45</td>
			<td style="width:195px;">Sarsted</td>
			<td style="width:119px;">67.754</td>
			<td>Cuvette for Zetasizer Nano ZS</td>
		</tr>
		<tr height="21">
			<td height="21" style="height:21px;width:360px;">Design-Expert(R) 8</td>
			<td style="width:195px;">Stat-Ease, Inc.</td>
			<td style="width:119px;">n.a.</td>
			<td>DoE software</td>
		</tr>
		<tr height="21">
			<td height="21" style="height:21px;width:360px;">Disodium phosphate</td>
			<td style="width:195px;">Carl Roth GmbH</td>
			<td style="width:119px;">&#160;4984.3&#160;</td>
			<td>Media component</td>
		</tr>
		<tr height="21">
			<td height="21" style="height:21px;width:360px;">Ferty 2 Mega</td>
			<td style="width:195px;">Kammlott</td>
			<td style="width:119px;">5.220072</td>
			<td>Fertilizer</td>
		</tr>
		<tr height="21">
			<td height="21" style="height:21px;width:360px;">Forma -86C ULT freezer</td>
			<td style="width:195px;">ThermoFisher</td>
			<td style="width:119px;">88400</td>
			<td>Freezer</td>
		</tr>
		<tr height="21">
			<td height="21" style="height:21px;width:360px;">Greenhouse</td>
			<td style="width:195px;">n.a.</td>
			<td style="width:119px;">n.a.</td>
			<td>For plant cultivation</td>
		</tr>
		<tr height="21">
			<td height="21" style="height:21px;width:360px;">Grodan Rockwool Cubes 10x10cm</td>
			<td style="width:195px;">Grodan</td>
			<td style="width:119px;">102446</td>
			<td>Rockwool block</td>
		</tr>
		<tr height="21">
			<td height="21" style="height:21px;width:360px;">Twentey-loop heat exchanger (4.8 m length)</td>
			<td style="width:195px;">n.a. (custom design)</td>
			<td style="width:119px;">n.a.</td>
			<td>Heat exchanger</td>
		</tr>
		<tr height="21">
			<td height="21" style="height:21px;width:360px;">HEPES</td>
			<td style="width:195px;">Carl Roth GmbH</td>
			<td style="width:119px;">9105.3</td>
			<td>Media component</td>
		</tr>
		<tr height="21">
			<td height="21" style="height:21px;width:360px;">K200P 60D</td>
			<td style="width:195px;">Pall</td>
			<td style="width:119px;">5302303</td>
			<td>Depth filter layer</td>
		</tr>
		<tr height="21">
			<td height="21" style="height:21px;width:360px;">KS50P 60D</td>
			<td style="width:195px;">Pall</td>
			<td style="width:119px;">B12486</td>
			<td>Depth filter layer</td>
		</tr>
		<tr height="21">
			<td height="21" style="height:21px;width:360px;">Lauda E300</td>
			<td style="width:195px;">Lauda Dr Wobser GmbH</td>
			<td style="width:119px;">Z90010</td>
			<td>Water bath thermostat</td>
		</tr>
		<tr height="21">
			<td height="21" style="height:21px;width:360px;">L/S 24</td>
			<td style="width:195px;">Masterflex</td>
			<td style="width:119px;">SN-06508-24</td>
			<td>Tubing</td>
		</tr>
		<tr height="42">
			<td height="42" style="height:42px;width:360px;">mAb 5.2</td>
			<td style="width:195px;">American Type Culture Collection</td>
			<td style="width:119px;">HB-9148</td>
			<td>Vax8 specific antibody</td>
		</tr>
		<tr height="21">
			<td height="21" style="height:21px;width:360px;">Masterflex L/S</td>
			<td style="width:195px;">Masterflex</td>
			<td style="width:119px;">HV-77921-75</td>
			<td>Peristaltic pump</td>
		</tr>
		<tr height="21">
			<td height="21" style="height:21px;width:360px;">Miracloth</td>
			<td style="width:195px;">Labomedic</td>
			<td style="width:119px;">475855-1R</td>
			<td>Filter cloth</td>
		</tr>
		<tr height="21">
			<td height="21" style="height:21px;width:360px;">MultiLine Multi 3410 IDS</td>
			<td style="width:195px;">WTW</td>
			<td style="width:119px;">WTW_2020</td>
			<td>pH meter / conductivity meter</td>
		</tr>
		<tr height="21">
			<td height="21" style="height:21px;width:360px;">Osram cool white 36 W</td>
			<td style="width:195px;">Osram</td>
			<td style="width:119px;">4930440</td>
			<td>Light source</td>
		</tr>
		<tr height="21">
			<td height="21" style="height:21px;width:360px;">Phytotron</td>
			<td style="width:195px;">Ilka Zell</td>
			<td style="width:119px;">n.a.</td>
			<td>For plant cultivation</td>
		</tr>
		<tr height="21">
			<td height="21" style="height:21px;width:360px;">Sodium disulfit</td>
			<td style="width:195px;">Carl Roth GmbH</td>
			<td style="width:119px;">8554.1</td>
			<td>Media component</td>
		</tr>
		<tr height="21">
			<td height="21" style="height:21px;width:360px;">Sodium chloride</td>
			<td style="width:195px;">Carl Roth GmbH</td>
			<td style="width:119px;">P029.2</td>
			<td>Media component</td>
		</tr>
		<tr height="42">
			<td height="42" style="height:42px;width:360px;">Stainless-steel vessel; 0.7-kg 2.0-L; height 180 mm; diameter 120 mm</td>
			<td style="width:195px;">n.a. (custom design)</td>
			<td style="width:119px;">n.a.</td>
			<td>Container for heat precipitation</td>
		</tr>
		<tr height="21">
			<td height="21" style="height:21px;width:360px;">Synergy HT</td>
			<td style="width:195px;">BioTek</td>
			<td style="width:119px;">SIAFRT</td>
			<td>Fluorescence and spectrometric plate reader</td>
		</tr>
		<tr height="21">
			<td height="21" style="height:21px;width:360px;">VelaPad 60</td>
			<td style="width:195px;">Pall</td>
			<td style="width:119px;">VP60G03KNH4</td>
			<td>Filter housing</td>
		</tr>
		<tr height="21">
			<td height="21" style="height:21px;width:360px;">Zetasizer Nano ZS</td>
			<td style="width:195px;">Malvern</td>
			<td style="width:119px;">ZEN3600</td>
			<td>DLS particle size distribution measurement</td>
		</tr>
		<tr height="21">
			<td height="21" style="height:21px;width:360px;">Zetasizer Software v7.11</td>
			<td style="width:195px;">Malvern</td>
			<td style="width:119px;">n.a.</td>
			<td>Software to operate the Zetasizer Nano ZS device</td>
		</tr>
	</tbody>
</table>

comparison of tobacco host cell protein removal methods by blanching intact plants or by heat treatment of extracts

Plants not only provide food, feed and raw materials for humans, but have also been developed as an economical production system for biopharmaceutical proteins, such as antibodies, vaccine candidates and enzymes. These must be purified from the plant biomass but chromatography steps are hindered by the high concentrations of host cell proteins (HCPs) in plant extracts. However, most HCPs irreversibly aggregate at temperatures above 60 &#176;C facilitating subsequent purification of the target protein. Here, three methods are presented to achieve the heat precipitation of tobacco HCPs in either intact leaves or extracts. The blanching of intact leaves can easily be incorporated into existing processes but may have a negative impact on subsequent filtration steps. The opposite is true for heat precipitation of leaf extracts in a stirred vessel, which can improve the performance of downstream operations albeit with major changes in process equipment design, such as homogenizer geometry. Finally, a heat exchanger setup is well characterized in terms of heat transfer conditions and easy to scale, but cleaning can be difficult and there may be a negative impact on filter capacity. The design-of-experiments approach can be used to identify the most relevant process parameters affecting HCP removal and product recovery. This facilitates the application of each method in other expression platforms and the identification of the most suitable method for a given purification strategy.

Heat precipitation of tobacco host cell proteins by blanching 
The blanching procedure described in section 2. was successfully used to precipitate HCPs from tobacco leaves with 70 &#176;C, reducing the TSP by 96 &#177; 1% (n = 3) while recovering up to 51% of the Vax8 target protein, thus increasing its purity from 0.1% to 1.2% before chromatographic separation 16. It was also possible to recover 83 &#177; 1% (n =3) of the fluorescent protein DsRed, increasing it...

Watch this Scientific Journal Video about Comparison of Tobacco Host Cell Protein Removal Methods by Blanching Intact Plants or by Heat Treatment of Extracts at JoVE.com

Comparison of Tobacco Host Cell Protein Removal Methods by Blanching Intact Plants or by Heat Treatment of Extracts

Three heat precipitation methods are presented that effectively remove more than 90% of host cell proteins (HCPs) from tobacco extracts prior to any other purification step. The plant HCPs irreversibly aggregate at temperatures above 60 &#176;C.

Plants not only provide food, feed and raw materials for humans, but have also been developed as an economical production system for biopharmaceutical ...

The overall goal of this set of experiments is to precipitate plant host cell proteins using heat. Thus facilitating subsequent chromatographic purification of recombinant biopharmaceutical proteins. This method can help to streamline process development and increase product stability, for example by activating host proteases.The main advantage of this technique is that it is easy to implement into existing proteases and can be quickly adapted to different target proteins. Demonstrating the procedure will be Hannah Gruchow a master's student from my laboratory. To heat precipitate host cell proteins.For example from tobacco leaves. After culturing tobacco plants according to the text protocol set up an eight liter working volume water bath in a thermally insulated polystyrene foam bucket. Transfer the entire assembly onto a magnetic stir plate, and place a magnetic bar in the water bath.Then surround the stir bar with a nonmagnetic support tile topping the stir bar by approximately one centimeter. Upon which a polypropylene basket will be placed later during the procedure. Add eight liters of buffer to the water bath.Then place a 23 by 23 by 23 centimeter polypropylene basket on the support tiles. Ensuring that the support does not interfere with the stir bar rotation, and that the basket is fully submerged in the liquid. Then removed the basket.Use an adjustable thermostat to bring the water bath to 70 degrees Celsius. Wait at least 15 minutes after the desired temperature is reached to ensure the entire assembly has reached the thermal equilibrium. Next, prepare 150 gram aliquots from the tobacco leaves.Place one aliquot in the basket while avoiding irreversible compression and damage to the leaves. For example, by tearing. Carefully but quickly submerge the basket in the hot liquid and place it on the support tiles.Then place a stainless steel block on top of the basket to prevent flotation. Incubate the leaves for five minutes in the blanching fluid. Or select a time suitable for the experimental design.Monitor the liquid temperature during the entire incubation period. After the incubation, carefully remove the basket from the blanching fluid and let the leaves drain for 30 seconds. Then take the plant leaves out of the basket, transfer them to the blender, and immediately start the extraction according to the text protocols.To heat precipitate HCPs in a stirred vessel. Transfer a water bath onto a magnetic stir plate and place a two liter stainless steel vessel into the water bath such that the center of the vessel is aligned to the center of the stir plate. Place a magnetic stir bar in the stainless steel vessel.Fill the vessel with extraction buffer. Then with the deionized water. Fill the water bath to five centimeters below the upper edge of the stainless steel vessel.Use a polystyrene foam lid to cover it. Next, insert a thermometer into the stainless steel vessel through a soothing hole in the lid. Then set the water bath temperature to 78 degrees Celsius and incubate the entire assembly for 15 minutes to reach thermal equilibrium.When the assembly has reached equilibrium empty the vessel and pour 300 milliliters of extract into the vessel while it is still in the water bath and start the timer. Stir the extract at 150 rpm while incubating for five minutes. Ensure that the extract reaches a temperature of 70 degrees Celsius for at least two minutes during the incubation period.After the incubation removed the hot water bath from the magnetic stirrer. Take out the stainless steel vessel and place it in a bucket with ice cold water. Then place the bucket onto the stir plate.Ensure that the plant homogenate is well agitated at 150 rpm. Place the thermometer in the extract and incubate it until it reaches a temperature of 20 degrees Celsius or the temperature specified. After setting up two eight liter working volume water baths according to the text protocol, use deionized water to fill the first bath.Set the thermostat to 74.5 degrees Celsius and incubate the assembly for 15 minutes to reach thermal equilibrium. Prepare an insulated storage vessel by placing a 0.5 liter plastic beaker into a one liter plastic beaker. And use an isolation material such as cotton wool to fill the gaps.Using LS24 tubing, connect the heat exchanger to a peristaltic pump at one end, and to an outlet hose on the other end. Place both tubing ends along with the thermometer in the insulated storage vessel. And fill it with 300 millimeters of extraction buffer.Next, place the heat exchanger into the hot water bath, and start the peristaltic pump at a rate of 300 milliliters per minute. After three minutes, ensure that the resulting temperature in the vessel is 70 degrees Celsius. Approximately 4.5 degrees Celsius below the set point of the water bath.Discard the extraction buffer from the insulated vessel, and prepare 300 milliliter aliquots of the plant extract. Then with one aliquot, fill the insulated vessel. Now pump the plant extract through the heat exchanger at 300 milliliters per minute for five minutes.Then ensure that the extract temperature is 70 degrees Celsius after three minutes or equals the temperature to find in the experimental design. After five minutes, transfer the heat exchanger into the ice cold water bath. Make sure the temperature of the extract is below 30 degrees Celsius before proceeding.Remove the inlet hose connected to the peristaltic pump from the insulated vessel. And continue pumping to collect residual heat precipitated plant extract from within the heat exchanger. Then stop the pump.To carry out bag filtration of the plant extract, mount a bag filter into the corresponding support basket fitted into the filter housing. Place a one liter vessel beneath the basket and apply the extract aliquots to the bag at a rate of 150 milliliters per minute. After filtration, use a turbidimeter to measure the turbidity of a one to 10 dilution of filtrate in extraction buffer.Aliquot a one milliliter sample and process the bag filtrate. For example, through depth filtration and chromatography. Further analyze the sample according to the text protocol.Heat precipitation of host cell proteins by blanching reduce the total soluble protein or TSP by 96 plus or minus one percent. Blanching recovered up to 83 plus or minus one percent of DsRed and 51 percent of the Vax8 target protein. Increasing its purity from 0.1 percent to 1.2 percent before chromatographic separation.The filter capacity declined at blanching temperatures greater than 63 degrees Celsius. Which can be addressed by adding flocculants after protein extraction and filter aids after bag filtration. A stirred vessel for heat precipitation removed a maximum of 84 plus or minus one percent HCPs.Achieving a purity of 0.33 plus or minus 0.02 percent for Vax8 and 20.2 plus or minus 1.4 percent for DsRed. In contrast to blanching and the heat exchanger setup HCP precipitation in a vessel increase the capacity of downstream depth filtration by 2.5-fold. Reflecting the lower sheer forces in the vessel compared to pumping extract through the heat exchanger or homogenization after blanching.Approximately 88.3 plus or minus 0.7 percent of the HCP content was consistently removed from the extract using a heat exchanger between 60 and 70 degrees Celsius. Achieving a purity of 0.31 plus or minus 0.01 percent for Vax8. And 27.6 plus or minus 2.0 percent for DsRed.Finally, the heat exchanger also achieved the lowest downstream depth filter capacity. Clarifying only 13.5 plus or minus 6.0 liters per square meter before clogging. Once mastered this technique can be done in less than 50 minutes plus sample if it's performed properly.While attempting this method it's important to remember to ensure that the target protein is heat stable. Following this procedure other methods like chromatography can be performed in order to further purify the product to the required level. After its development this technique paved the way for researchers in the field of plant by a technology to explore the purification of vaccine candidate proteins and nicotiana species.After watching this video you should have a good understanding of how to precipitate plant host cell proteins using blanching, stirred vessel or heat exchanger.

comparison-tobacco-host-cell-protein-removal-methods-blanching-intact

Research

JoVE Journal

Biology

Preparation and Fractionation of Xenopus laevis Egg Extracts

Crude and fractionated Xenopus egg extracts can be used to provide ingredients for reconstituting cellular processes for morphological and biochemical analysis. Egg lysis and differential centrifugation are used to prepare the crude extract which in turn in used to prepare fractionated extracts and light membrane preparations.

Crude and fractionated Xenopus egg extracts can be used to provide ingredients for reconstituting cellular processes for morphological and biochemical analysis. Egg lysis and differential centrifugation are used to prepare the crude extract which in turn in used to prepare fractionated extracts and light membrane preparations.

Crude and fractionated Xenopus egg extracts can be used to provide ingredients for reconstituting cellular processes for morphological and biochemical ...

Detection of Post-translational Modifications on Native Intact Nucleosomes by ELISA

The genome of eukaryotes exists as chromatin which contains both DNA and proteins. The fundamental unit of chromatin is the nucleosome, which contains 146 base pairs of DNA associated with two each of histones H2A, H2B, H3, and H41. The N-terminal tails of histones are rich in lysine and arginine and are modified post-transcriptionally by acetylation, methylation, and other post-translational modifications (PTMs). The PTM configuration of nucleosomes can affect the transcriptional activity of associated DNA, thus providing a mode of gene regulation that is epigenetic in nature 2,3. We developed a method called nucleosome ELISA (NU-ELISA) to quantitatively determine global PTM signatures of nucleosomes extracted from cells. NU-ELISA is more sensitive and quantitative than western blotting, and is useful to interrogate the epiproteomic state of specific cell types. This video journal article shows detailed procedures to perform NU-ELISA analysis.

Nucleosome ELISA (NU-ELISA) is a sensitive and quantitative method to detect global patterns of post-translational modifications in preparations of native, intact nucleosomes. These modifications include methylations, acetylations, and phosphorylations at specific histone amino acid residues, and hence NU-ELISA provides a global proteomic assay of the overall chromatin modification states of specific cell types.

The genome of eukaryotes exists as chromatin which contains both DNA and proteins. The fundamental unit of chromatin is the nucleosome, which contains 146 ...

The MultiBac Protein Complex Production Platform at the EMBL

Proteomics research revealed the impressive complexity of eukaryotic proteomes in unprecedented detail. It is now a commonly accepted notion that proteins in cells mostly exist not as isolated entities but exert their biological activity in association with many other proteins, in humans ten or more, forming assembly lines in the cell for most if not all vital functions.1,2 Knowledge of the function and architecture of these multiprotein assemblies requires their provision in superior quality and sufficient quantity for detailed analysis. The paucity of many protein complexes in cells, in particular in eukaryotes, prohibits their extraction from native sources, and necessitates recombinant production. The baculovirus expression vector system (BEVS) has proven to be particularly useful for producing eukaryotic proteins, the activity of which often relies on post-translational processing that other commonly used expression systems often cannot support.3 BEVS use a recombinant baculovirus into which the gene of interest was inserted to infect insect cell cultures which in turn produce the protein of choice. MultiBac is a BEVS that has been particularly tailored for the production of eukaryotic protein complexes that contain many subunits.4 A vital prerequisite for efficient production of proteins and their complexes are robust protocols for all steps involved in an expression experiment that ideally can be implemented as standard operating procedures (SOPs) and followed also by non-specialist users with comparative ease. The MultiBac platform at the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL) uses SOPs for all steps involved in a multiprotein complex expression experiment, starting from insertion of the genes into an engineered baculoviral genome optimized for heterologous protein production properties to small-scale analysis of the protein specimens produced.5-8 The platform is installed in an open-access mode at EMBL Grenoble and has supported many scientists from academia and industry to accelerate protein complex research projects.

Protein complexes catalyze key cellular functions. Detailed functional and structural characterization of many essential complexes requires recombinant production. MultiBac is a baculovirus/insect cell system particularly tailored for expressing eukaryotic proteins and their complexes. MultiBac was implemented as an open-access platform, and standard operating procedures developed to maximize its utility.

Proteomics  research revealed the impressive complexity of eukaryotic proteomes in  unprecedented detail. It is now a commonly accepted notion that ...

Protein-protein Interactions Visualized by Bimolecular Fluorescence Complementation in Tobacco Protoplasts and Leaves

Many proteins interact transiently with other proteins or are integrated into multi-protein complexes to perform their biological function. Bimolecular fluorescence complementation (BiFC) is an in vivo method to monitor such interactions in plant cells. In the presented protocol the investigated candidate proteins are fused to complementary halves of fluorescent proteins and the respective constructs are introduced into plant cells via agrobacterium-mediated transformation. Subsequently, the proteins are transiently expressed in tobacco leaves and the restored fluorescent signals can be detected with a confocal laser scanning microscope in the intact cells. This allows not only visualization of the interaction itself, but also the subcellular localization of the protein complexes can be determined. For this purpose, marker genes containing a fluorescent tag can be coexpressed along with the BiFC constructs, thus visualizing cellular structures such as the endoplasmic reticulum, mitochondria, the Golgi apparatus or the plasma membrane. The fluorescent signal can be monitored either directly in epidermal leaf cells or in single protoplasts, which can be easily isolated from the transformed tobacco leaves. BiFC is ideally suited to study protein-protein interactions in their natural surroundings within the living cell. However, it has to be considered that the expression has to be driven by strong promoters and that the interaction partners are modified due to fusion of the relatively large fluorescence tags, which might interfere with the interaction mechanism. Nevertheless, BiFC is an excellent complementary approach to other commonly applied methods investigating protein-protein interactions, such as coimmunoprecipitation, in vitro pull-down assays or yeast-two-hybrid experiments.

Formation of protein complexes in vivo can be visualized by bimolecular fluorescence complementation. Interaction partners are fused to complementary parts of fluorescent tags and transiently expressed in tobacco leaves, resulting in a reconstituted fluorescent signal upon close proximity of the two proteins.

Many proteins interact transiently with other proteins or are integrated into multi-protein complexes to perform their biological function. Bimolecular ...

In Vivo 4-Dimensional Tracking of Hematopoietic Stem and Progenitor Cells in Adult Mouse Calvarial Bone Marrow

Through a delicate balance between quiescence and proliferation, self renewal and production of differentiated progeny, hematopoietic stem cells (HSCs) maintain the turnover of all mature blood cell lineages. The coordination of the complex signals leading to specific HSC fates relies upon the interaction between HSCs and the intricate bone marrow microenvironment, which is still poorly understood[1-2].
We describe how by combining a newly developed specimen holder for stable animal positioning with multi-step confocal and two-photon in vivo imaging techniques, it is possible to obtain high-resolution 3D stacks containing HSPCs and their surrounding niches and to monitor them over time through multi-point time-lapse imaging. High definition imaging allows detecting ex vivo labeled hematopoietic stem and progenitor cells (HSPCs) residing within the bone marrow. Moreover, multi-point time-lapse 3D imaging, obtained with faster acquisition settings, provides accurate information about HSPC movement and the reciprocal interactions between HSPCs and stroma cells.
Tracking of HSPCs in relation to GFP positive osteoblastic cells is shown as an exemplary application of this method. This technique can be utilized to track any appropriately labeled hematopoietic or stromal cell of interest within the mouse calvarium bone marrow space.

In Vivo 4-Dimensional Tracking of Hematopoietic Stem and Progenitor Cells in Adult Mouse Calvarial Bone Marrow

The nature of the interactions between hematopoietic stem and progenitor cells (HSPCs) and bone marrow niches is poorly understood. Custom hardware modifications and a multi-step acquisition protocol allow the use of two-photon and confocal microscopy to image ex vivo labeled HSPCs homed within bone marrow areas, tracking interactions and movement.

Through a delicate balance between quiescence and proliferation, self renewal and production of differentiated progeny, hematopoietic stem cells (HSCs) ...

Fecal Glucocorticoid Analysis: Non-invasive Adrenal Monitoring in Equids

Adrenal activity can be assessed in the equine species by analysis of feces for corticosterone metabolites. During a potentially aversive situation, corticotrophin releasing hormone (CRH) is released from the hypothalamus in the brain. This stimulates the release of adrenocorticotrophic hormone (ACTH) from the pituitary gland, which in turn stimulates release of glucocorticoids from the adrenal gland. In horses the glucocorticoid corticosterone is responsible for several adaptations needed to support equine flight behaviour and subsequent removal from the aversive situation. Corticosterone metabolites can be detected in the feces of horses and assessment offers a non-invasive option to evaluate long term patterns of adrenal activity. Fecal assessment offers advantages over other techniques that monitor adrenal activity including blood plasma and saliva analysis. The non-invasive nature of the method avoids sampling stress which can confound results. It also allows the opportunity for repeated sampling over time and is ideal for studies in free ranging horses. This protocol describes the enzyme linked immunoassay (EIA) used to assess feces for corticosterone, in addition to the associated biochemical validation.

Adrenal activity can be assessed in the equine species by analysis of feces for corticosterone metabolites. The method offers a non-invasive option to assess long term patterns in both domestic and free ranging horses. This protocol describes the enzyme linked immunoassay involved and the associated biochemical validation.

Adrenal activity can be assessed in the equine species by analysis of feces for corticosterone metabolites. During a potentially aversive situation, ...

DamID-seq: Genome-wide Mapping of Protein-DNA Interactions by High Throughput Sequencing of Adenine-methylated DNA Fragments

The DNA adenine methyltransferase identification (DamID) assay is a powerful method to detect protein-DNA interactions both locally and genome-wide. It is an alternative approach to chromatin immunoprecipitation (ChIP). An expressed fusion protein consisting of the protein of interest and the E. coli DNA adenine methyltransferase can methylate the adenine base in GATC motifs near the sites of protein-DNA interactions. Adenine-methylated DNA fragments can then be specifically amplified and detected. The original DamID assay detects the genomic locations of methylated DNA fragments by hybridization to DNA microarrays, which is limited by the availability of microarrays and the density of predetermined probes. In this paper, we report the detailed protocol of integrating high throughput DNA sequencing into DamID (DamID-seq). The large number of short reads generated from DamID-seq enables detecting and localizing protein-DNA interactions genome-wide with high precision and sensitivity. We have used the DamID-seq assay to study genome-nuclear lamina (NL) interactions in mammalian cells, and have noticed that DamID-seq provides a high resolution and a wide dynamic range in detecting genome-NL interactions. The DamID-seq approach enables probing NL associations within gene structures and allows comparing genome-NL interaction maps with other functional genomic data, such as ChIP-seq and RNA-seq.

We describe herein an assay by coupling DNA adenine methyltransferase identification (DamID) to high throughput sequencing (DamID-seq). This improved method provides a higher resolution and a wider dynamic range, and allows analyzing DamID-seq data in conjunction with other high throughput sequencing data such as ChIP-seq, RNA-seq, etc.

The DNA adenine methyltransferase identification (DamID) assay is a powerful method to detect protein-DNA interactions both locally and genome-wide. It is ...

Procedure to Evaluate the Efficiency of Flocculants for the Removal of Dispersed Particles from Plant Extracts

Plants are important to humans not only because they provide commodities such as food, feed and raw materials, but increasingly because they can be used as manufacturing platforms for added-value products such as biopharmaceuticals. In both cases, liquid plant extracts may need to be clarified to remove particulates. Optimal clarification reduces the costs of filtration and centrifugation by increasing capacity and longevity. This can be achieved by introducing charged polymers known as flocculants, which cross-link dispersed particles to facilitate solid-liquid separation. There are no mechanistic flocculation models for complex mixtures such as plant extracts so empirical models are used instead. Here a design-of-experiments procedure is described that allows the rapid screening of different flocculants, optimizing the clarification of plant extracts and significantly reducing turbidity. The resulting predictive models allow the identification of robust process conditions and sets of polymers with complementary properties, e.g. effective flocculation in extracts with specific conductivities. The results presented for tobacco leaf extracts can easily be adapted to other plant species or tissues and will thus facilitate the development of more cost-effective downstream processes for commodities and plant-derived pharmaceuticals.

The design-of-experiments procedure presented here allows the evaluation of different flocculants in terms of their ability to aggregate dispersed particles in plant extracts, thus reducing turbidity and the costs of downstream processing.

Plants are important to humans not only because they provide commodities such as food, feed and raw materials, but increasingly because they can be used ...

Comparison of Three Different Methods for Determining Cell Proliferation in Breast Cancer Cell Lines

Measuring cell proliferation can be performed by a number of different methods, each with varying levels of sensitivity, reproducibility and compatibility with high-throughput formatting. This protocol describes the use of three different methods for measuring cell proliferation in vitro including conventional hemocytometer counting chamber, a luminescence-based assay that utilizes the change in the metabolic activity of viable cells as a measure of the relative number of cells, and a multi-mode cell imager that measures cell number using a counting algorithm. Each method presents its own advantages and disadvantages for the measurement of cell proliferation, including time, cost and high-throughput compatibility. This protocol demonstrates that each method could accurately measure cell proliferation over time, and was sensitive to detect growth at differing cellular densities. Additionally, measurement of cell proliferation using a cell imager was able to provide further information such as morphology, confluence and allowed for a continual monitoring of cell proliferation over time. In conclusion, each method is capable of measuring cell proliferation, but the chosen method is user-dependent.

This protocol describes the use of three different methods for analyzing cell proliferation in breast cancer cell lines. This includes the use of conventional cell counting, luminescence-based cell viability, and cell counting through the use of a cell imager. Each offers advantages for the reproducible measurement of cell proliferation.

Measuring cell proliferation can be performed by a number of different methods, each with varying levels of sensitivity, reproducibility and compatibility ...

Xenopus Oocytes: Optimized Methods for Microinjection, Removal of Follicular Cell Layers, and Fast Solution Changes in Electrophysiological Experiments

The Xenopus oocyte as a heterologous expression system for proteins, was first described by Gurdon et al.1 and has been widely used since its discovery (References 2 - 3, and references therein). A characteristic that makes the oocyte attractive for foreign channel expression is the poor abundance of endogenous ion channels4. This expression system has proven useful for the characterization of many proteins, among them ligand-gated ion channels.
The expression of GABAA receptors in Xenopus oocytes and their functional characterization is described here, including the isolation of oocytes, microinjections with cRNA, the removal of follicular cell layers, and fast solution changes in electrophysiological experiments. The procedures were optimized in this laboratory5,6 and deviate from the ones routinely used7-9. Traditionally, denuded oocytes are prepared with a prolonged collagenase treatment of ovary lobes at RT, and these denuded oocytes are microinjected with mRNA. Using the optimized methods, diverse membrane proteins have been expressed and studied with this system, such as recombinant GABAA receptors10-12, human recombinant chloride channels13, Trypanosome potassium channels14, and a myo-inositol transporter15, 16.
The methods detailed here may be applied to the expression of any protein of choice in Xenopus oocytes, and the rapid solution change can be used to study other ligand-gated ion channels.

Xenopus Oocytes: Optimized Methods for Microinjection, Removal of Follicular Cell Layers, and Fast Solution Changes in Electrophysiological Experiments

Optimized procedures for the isolation of single follicles, cytoplasmic RNA microinjections, the removal of surrounding cell layers, and protein expression in Xenopus oocytes are described. In addition, a simple method for fast solution changes in electrophysiological experiments with ligand-gated ion channels is presented.

The Xenopus oocyte as a heterologous expression system for proteins, was first described by Gurdon et al.1 and has been widely used since its discovery ...