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Construction of a membrane-lytic immunotoxin using melittin and epidermal growth factor
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 24 April 2009
Abstract
Epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) is becoming a perfect target for killing carcinoma cells, especially because of its overexpression on the surface of these cells. Cationic antimicrobial peptides (CAP) have their own special mechanism of membrane-lytic cytotoxicity. In this study, a membrane-lytic immunotoxin (IT), chimeric protein MEGFMEL, was constructed to kill carcinoma cells with EGFR overexpression. This protein is composed of mouse (Mus musculus) epidermal growth factor (MEGF), as the target part, and melittin (MEL), as the cytotoxic part. Using Escherichia coli BL21 and pET30a as expression strain and vector, respectively, 63.45 μg/ml of MEGFMEL (68% purity) was obtained through low-temperature induction of expression and a thawing-freezing purification procedure (without cytolysis). In vitro activity measurement showed that this MEGFMEL significantly induced a lethal effect on A431 carcinoma cells overexpressing EGFR on the surface, with an LD50 value 52.6 μg/ml. The results suggest that the use of CAP as the toxin in the construction of unique membrane-lytic ITs aimed at EGFR is feasible.
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- Copyright © China Agricultural University 2009
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