Sirikwan Boonmoh. Molecular cloning and expression of the nucleoprotein gene of influenza a virus . Master's Degree(Immunology). Mahidol University. : Mahidol University, 2006.
Molecular cloning and expression of the nucleoprotein gene of influenza a virus
Abstract:
Influenza A virus infection has emerged as one of the major threats to human and animal health. The current outbreak of avian influenza virus of the H5N1 type in animals has the potential to cause new influenza pandemics which may have devastating results. Strategies for preventing and managing the potential outbreaks include the ability to detect the infection, prompt therapy, vaccines, and public health measures. One of the assays for identifying the infection is based on the nucleoprotein (NP) protein and its antibody. The aim of this study is to clone and express the recombinant nucleoprotein of influenza A virus, which is immunogenic and can react with antibodies to NP.
The strategy used in this study involved PCR amplification of NP gene from the H5N1 strain of influenza A and cloning into prokaryotic expression vectors. The RNA from avian influenza isolate, A/chicken/Nakorn-Pathom/Thailand/cu-k2/04 (H5N1), was amplified using primers covering the full-length NP gene and it was cloned into pMAL-c2x plasmid and transformed into E. coli TB1. pMAL-c2x expression vector allows the expression of fusion protein of influenza H5N1 NP and maltose binding protein (MBP). It is known that NP protein is insoluble and therefore the MBP tagged fusion protein may improve solubility. However, the recombinant NP-MBP clone did not express the protein after induction with IPTG. Since the attempt to express full-length NP gene was unsuccessful, the NP insert was truncated by removing the potential toxic portion while the immunogenic domain remained intact. Attempts were also made to retransform the recombinant gene into another expression vector, pQE-30, which expresses 6xHis fusion protein at N-terminal. The results showed that the truncated nucleoprotein gene was cloned into pMAL-c2x and transformed into E. coli TG1, and it was cloned into pQE-30 and transformed into E. coli TG1 and M15(pREP4). However, none of the recombinant E.coli expressed the fusion proteins. The incompatibility of codon usage of the NP gene (eukaryotic type) and E. coli host cell (prokaryotic type) was identified as a factor affecting the inability to express the NP protein in E. coli host cells. Nucleoprotein of influenza A virus have many rare codons for the E. coli system. Therefore, a special E. coli host cell, BL21(DE3)-RIL that has rare tRNAs was used as the host cell for protein expression. Truncated recombinant NP gene in pMAL-c2x was transformed into this E. coli strain. After induction, the recombinant E. coli expressed the protein in both soluble and non-soluble fractions. In order to produce higher levels of soluble protein, the temperature for bacterial culture was reduced and the result showed that 20 and 25 degree Celsius was appropriate. The soluble recombinant truncated nucleoprotein was expressed and purified by binding of MBP and amylose resin, and then eluted by maltose. The purified protein was found to be immunogenic and can react with monoclonal antibodies against nucleoproteins of influenza A virus.