Inactivation of complement by recombinant human C3 derivatives.
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Amino Acid Sequence↗
Biomedical subjects
Johanna Kölln
Publications and source records attributed to Johanna Kölln.
Engineering of human complement component C3 for catalytic inhibition of complement.
As a novel therapeutic approach in complement-mediated pathologies, we recently developed a human C3 derivative capable of obliterating functional complement by a catalytic, non-inhibitory mechanism. In this derivative, the C-terminal region of hC3 was substituted by a 275 amino acid sequence derived from the corresponding sequence of cobra venom factor (CVF), a complement-activating C3b homologue from snake venom. In this study, we replaced shorter C-terminal sequences of hC3 by corresponding CVF sequences to further reduce potential immunogenicity and to identify domains essential for the formation of functionally stable C3 convertases. In one of these derivatives that is still capable of obliterating functional complement in vitro, the non-human portion could be reduced to a small domain located in the C-terminus of different complement proteins. This conserved NTR/C345C motif is known to be involved in assembly of different convertases of the complement system. These results suggest a major role of the C345C domain in the regulation of the half-life of the C3 convertase. Moreover, its overall identity of 96% to human C3 renders this derivative a promising candidate for therapeutic intervention in complement-mediated pathologies.
Amino Acid Sequence↗
Complement inactivation by recombinant human C3 derivatives.
From the implications of the complement system in a large number of diseases, an urgent need for therapeutics effecting reduced complement activity in vivo has emerged. In this study we report the design of a novel class of enzymes of human origin that obliterate functional complement by a noninhibitory, catalytic mechanism. Combining the framework of human C3 and the enzymatic mechanism of cobra venom factor, a nontoxic snake venom protein, we established molecules capable of forming stable C3 convertase complexes. Although the half-life of naturally occurring C3 convertase complexes ranges between 1 and 2 min, these complexes exhibit a half-life of up to several hours. Because the overall identity to human C3 could be extended to >90%, the novel C3 derivatives can be assumed to exhibit low immunogenicity and, therefore, represent promising candidates for therapeutic reduction of complement activity in vivo.
Animals↗
Functional analysis of Cobra Venom Factor/human C3 chimeras transiently expressed in mammalian cells.
The complement activating venom component Cobra Venom Factor (CVF), a functional and structural homologue of the human complement component C3, forms a stable CVF-dependent C3 convertase complex, which, in contrast to C3-dependent convertase effects continuous activation of the complement and, thereby, decomplementation. In order to elucidate the mechanism underlying the enhanced activity of CVF compared to human C3, we generated two CVF/C3 chimeras and established different affinity-based assay systems for functional analysis of these constructs. To allow for convenient expression and subsequent functional characterisation, the CVF/C3 chimeras as well as CVF and C3 were transiently expressed in mammalian cells. Problems due to the low concentration of the recombinant proteins in the supernatants of transient expressions were circumvented by fusion to peptide tags enabling their efficient immobilisation onto suitable surfaces and subsequent characterisation. In an alternative approach monoclonal antibody fragments generated from a semisynthetic phage display scFv library were employed for concentrating the recombinant proteins by immunoprecipitation. Utilising both approaches all transiently expressed proteins could be characterised for their complement consumption activity. The data obtained with the CVF/C3 chimeras demonstrate that the increased stability of the CVFBb complex is independent of the domains in CVF corresponding to binding sites of factor B and H and the cleavage sites of factor I in the human C3 molecule.
Amino Acid Sequence↗