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Biomedical subjects

Paul H Bessette

Publications and source records attributed to Paul H Bessette.

6 recordsLinked to original sources
PubMed2006

Bacterial display using circularly permuted outer membrane protein OmpX yields high affinity peptide ligands.

A bacterial display methodology was developed for N- and C-terminal display and demonstrated to enable rapid screening of very large peptide libraries with high precision and efficiency. To overcome limitations of insertional fusion display libraries, a new scaffold was developed through circular permutation of the Escherichia coli outer membrane protein OmpX that presents both N and C termini on the external cell surface. Circularly permuted OmpX (CPX) display was directly compared to insertional fusion display by screening comparable peptide libraries in each format using magnetic and fluorescence activated cell sorting. CPX display enabled in situ measurement of dissociation rate constants with improved accuracy and, consequently, improved affinity discrimination during screening and ranking of isolated clones. Using streptavidin as a model target, bacterial display yielded the well-characterized HP(Q)/(M) motif obtained previously using several alternative peptide display systems, as well as three additional motifs (L(I)/(V) CQNVCY, CGWMY(F)/(Y)xEC, ERCWYVMHWPCNA). Using CPX display, a very high affinity streptavidin-binding peptide was isolated having a dissociation rate constant k(off) = 0.002sec(-1) even after grafting to the C terminus of an unrelated protein. Comparison of individual clones obtained from insertional fusion and terminal fusion libraries suggests that the N-terminal display yields sequences with greater diversity, affinity, and modularity. CPX bacterial display thus provides a highly effective method for screening peptide libraries to rapidly generate ligands with high affinity and specificity.

Affinity Labels↗
PubMed2005

Enzymatic synthesis of layered titanium phosphates at low temperature and neutral pH by cell-surface display of silicatein-alpha.

We introduce a novel method of inorganic synthesis using the catalytic and structure-directing properties of the demosponge enzyme silicatein-alpha. Recombinant silicatein-alpha was displayed at the surface of Escherichia coli cells by fusion to outer membrane protein A and used to biocatalytically direct the formation of layered and amorphous titanium phosphates from a small water-soluble precursor at near-neutral pH at 16 degrees C. Synthesis of titanium phosphates, with potential applications in catalysis and separation technology, previously has required prolonged reactions with phosphoric acid at elevated temperatures. Additionally, we use library screening to isolate a 15-mer with affinity toward the silicatein active site (Kd ca. 50 nM) and introduce this new approach to demonstrate the success of our display strategy. Considering our previous findings with native silicatein filaments, we suggest that this scalable, efficient, cell-based system may have a broad utility for the synthesis of a range of structured metallophosphates and other inorganic materials.

Amino Acid Sequence↗
PubMed2005

Marker-specific sorting of rare cells using dielectrophoresis.

Current techniques in high-speed cell sorting are limited by the inherent coupling among three competing parameters of performance: throughput, purity, and rare cell recovery. Microfluidics provides an alternate strategy to decouple these parameters through the use of arrayed devices that operate in parallel. To efficiently isolate rare cells from complex mixtures, an electrokinetic sorting methodology was developed that exploits dielectrophoresis (DEP) in microfluidic channels. In this approach, the dielectrophoretic amplitude response of rare target cells is modulated by labeling cells with particles that differ in polarization response. Cell mixtures were interrogated in the DEP-activated cell sorter in a continuous-flow manner, wherein the electric fields were engineered to achieve efficient separation between the dielectrophoretically labeled and unlabeled cells. To demonstrate the efficiency of marker-specific cell separation, DEP-activated cell sorting (DACS) was applied for affinity-based enrichment of rare bacteria expressing a specific surface marker from an excess of nontarget bacteria that do not express this marker. Rare target cells were enriched by >200-fold in a single round of sorting at a single-channel throughput of 10,000 cells per second. DACS offers the potential for automated, surface marker-specific cell sorting in a disposable format that is capable of simultaneously achieving high throughput, purity, and rare cell recovery.

Affinity Labels↗
PubMed2004

Rapid isolation of high-affinity protein binding peptides using bacterial display.

A robust bacterial display methodology was developed that allows the rapid isolation of peptides that bind to arbitrarily selected targets with high affinity. To demonstrate the utility of this approach, a large library (5 x 10(10) clones) was constructed composed of random 15-mer peptide insertions constrained within a flexible, surface exposed loop of the Escherichia coli outer membrane protein A (OmpA). The library was screened for binding to five unrelated proteins, including targets previously used in phage display selections: human serum albumin, anti-T7 epitope mAb, human C-reactive protein, HIV-1 GP120 and streptavidin. Two to four rounds of enrichment (2-4 days) were sufficient to enrich peptide ligands having high affinity for each of the target proteins. Strong amino acid consensus sequences were apparent for each of the targets tested, with up to seven consensus residues. Isolated peptide ligands remained functional when expressed as insertional fusions within a monomeric fluorescent protein. This bacterial display methodology provides an efficient process for identifying peptide affinity reagents and should be useful in a variety of molecular recognition applications.

Amino Acid Sequence↗
PubMedDate not supplied

Flow cytometric screening of cDNA expression libraries for fluorescent proteins.

Fluorescence-activated cell sorting (FACS) was applied for quantitative screening of cDNA expression libraries in bacteria for rare fluorescent protein encoding cDNAs. Rare fluorescent cells, observed at a frequency of 1 in 200,000 bacteria in a cDNA expression library constructed from Astrangia lajollaensis, were detected, enriched, and purified by sorting, yielding three distinct green fluorescent proteins. Two of the isolated fluorescent proteins were found to be 2.5-fold brighter in whole cell fluorescence than the widely used and already optimized EGFP variant and possessed a novel cysteine-containing chromophore. FACS can possess significant advantages in the screening of cDNA libraries in bacteria, since desired genes may occur at low frequencies and possess unexpected properties. This strategy provides a high-throughput, quantitative approach for isolating fluorescent proteins from a more diverse range of organisms and should be extendable to proteins that are not intrinsically fluorescent with the use of available fluorescent indicators.

Amino Acid Sequence↗