Quantitative Evaluation of Recombinant Protein Packaged into Outer Membrane Vesicles of Escherichia coli Cells

Outer membrane vesicles (OMVs) are spherical bilayered proteolipids released from the cell surfaces of bacteria, which have gained traction in the biotechnology fields. Bacterial cellular machinery can be genetically engineered to produce and package heterologous enzymes into OMVs, producing nanocarriers and nanoparticle catalysts. However, the productivity or efficiency of packaging the target protein into OMVs has not been quantitatively evaluated. In this study, we packaged green fluorescence protein (GFP) into the OMVs of Escherichia coli through N-terminal fused expression to outer membrane protein W (OmpW). The OMV productivity and amount of OmpW-GFP packaged in the OMVs were quantitatively compared between two hypervesiculating mutant strains ΔnlpI and ΔdegP. Both strains increased the OMV production, but the ΔnlpI strain additionally enhanced the packaging of OmpW-GFP into OMVs. It was further confirmed that Spr, a peptidoglycan endopeptidase, plays an important role in the enhanced packaging of OmpW-GFP into OMVs through the increased OmpW-GFP expression on the ΔnlpI cells. Finally, the amount of OmpW-GFP released in the OMV fraction of both mutants was determined in terms of the OMV productivity and the packaging efficiency of OmpW-GFP into OMVs. © 2017 American Institute of Chemical Engineers Biotechnol. Prog., 34:51-57, 2018.