Site-directed mutagenesis at amino terminus of recombinant ricin A chain

Successful immunotoxin therapy may depend upon reduction of the size of the components in order to decrease antigenicity and rate of clearance. In initial attempts to modify the A chain of ricin by deletion analyses within a prokaryotic expression system, coding sequences were modified by the insertion of unique restriction endonuclease sites and by the removal of 22 codons near the 5' terminus. The work presented here examines the expression, solubility, and activity of these mutant proteins and demonstrates that while amino acid residues may be altered in this region, the deletion of residues 19 through 40 yields an insoluble and inactive toxin molecule.