Suphansa Sawamiphak. Expression of the rat organic anion transporter 1 (rOAT1) in the yeast saccharomyces cerevisiae. Master's Degree(Biotechnology). Mahidol University. : Mahidol University, 2009-07-24.
Expression of the rat organic anion transporter 1 (rOAT1) in the yeast saccharomyces cerevisiae
Abstract:
Organic anion transporter 1, OAT1, localized in the basolateral membrane of the
kidney proximal tubule, is an essential part of the renal organic anion excretion system. A
wide variety of endogenous substances, xenobiotics and their metabolites have been
shown to be translocated into the proximal tubular cells in exchange for an intracellular
dicarboxylate by OAT1. In the present study the yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae was
employed as a heterologous expression system of the rat organic anion transporter 1
(rOAT1) and its functional characteristic underwent preliminary examination. There is a
scarce expression of mammalian membrane protein in yeast, most likely caused by an
intrinsic determinant within the gene and improper post-translational modification, most
importantly in glycosylation. The N-terminus of rOAT1, consisting of many minor
codons rarely used in yeast, was modified by fusion of the readily translatable
hemagglutinin (HA) epitope sequence preceding the start codon of rOAT1. In addition, to
find out the suitable expression system for rOAT1, different yeast expression plasmids
were chosen. This included inducible, integrative and multicopy plasmid. Furthermore,
the constitutive ADH1p and inducible GAL1p were used for controlling gene expression.
Since protein folding and stability often favor low temperature, glycosylation at different
temperature, 16°C and 30°C was also studied. Western blotting with polyclonal OAT1
antibody and monoclonal HA antibody showed that many proteins of the molecular mass,
from 60 kDa to 77 kDa, corresponding to the non-glycosylated and the glycosylated
rOAT1 gene product, respectively, were detectable in the total membrane extract of
recombinant yeast harboring the HArOAT1, but not in the cells harboring the wild type
rOAT1 gene. The GAL1-inducible expression in multicopy plasmid was found to be the
highest level while the ADH1-constitutive expression in integrative plasmid was the least.
Upon endoglycosidase H digestion, the sizes were reduced mostly to 60 kDa, suggesting
that a large portion of rOAT1 was expressed in yeast as the glycosylated protein. No
difference was found in the expression and glycosylation of rOAT1 expressed at different
growth temperature. The transport function of rOAT1 was characterized by measurement
of the radiolabeled substrate [14C]PAH which was taken up into yeast cells. The PAH
uptake ability of the yeast-expressed rOAT1, which correlated with the protein expression
level by different plasmids, was observed.
Collectively, these studies suggest that rOAT1 is functionally expressed in the
recombinant S. cerevisiae and the codon chosen at the N-terminus is an important factor
that affects the expression.