[Stable expression of human anti-IL-33 scFv-IgG1Fc fusion protein in CHO k1 cells]

To construct two different eukaryotic expression vectors of human anti-interleukin 33 (IL-33) single-chain antibody fragment (scFv-Fc) to transfect Chinese hamster ovary (CHO) k1 cells and select the stably and high-level expressed cell lines to improve the expression level of the fusion protein.

The previously constructed recombinant plasmid pcDNA3.1/SP-scFv-Fc was digested to obtain SP-scFv-Fc fragments, and the fragments were inserted into the plasmid PMH3(EN) to construct recombinant plasmid PMH3(EN)/SP-scFv-Fc. The plasmids PMH3(EN)/SP-scFv-Fc and pcDNA3.1/SP-scFv-Fc were separately transfected into CHO k1 cells. The transcription and translation level of the SP-scFv-Fc were detected by reverse transcription PCR (RT-PCR) and Western blotting, respectively. The stably and high-level expressed cell lines were screened by Dot blotting. The expression level and binding activity of the expressed scFv-Fc were measured by ELISA.

The recombinant plasmid PMH3(EN)/SP-scFv-Fc was successfully constructed and the size of the inserted SP-scFv-Fc was about 1560 bp. The RT-PCR results showed that the SP-scFv-Fc was successfully transfected into CHO k1 cells. The scFv-Fc proteins could be secreted into the cultural supernatant and specifically bind to human IL-33 and anti human IgG1 Fc antibody. The expression level of scFv-Fc in plasmid PMH3(EN) was higher than that in plasmid pcDNA3.1. After four rounds of screening, the stably and high-level expressed cell strains were obtained. The expression level of the scFv-Fc was about 10 mg/L. The competitive ELISA results showed that the expressed scFv-Fc fusion proteins could inhibit the binding of IL-33 to ST2.

The anti-IL-33 scFv-Fc proteins were highly expressed in CHO k1 cells.