期刊名称：Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
印刷版ISSN：0027-8424
电子版ISSN：1091-6490
出版年度：2010
卷号：107
期号：8
页码：3447-3452
DOI：10.1073/pnas.0915057107
语种：English
出版社：The National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America
摘要：This work describes a genetic approach to isolate small, artificial transmembrane (TM) proteins with biological activity. The bovine papillomavirus E5 protein is a dimeric, 44-amino acid TM protein that transforms cells by specifically binding and activating the platelet-derived growth factor {beta} receptor (PDGF{beta}R). We used the E5 protein as a scaffold to construct a retrovirus library expressing [~]500,000 unique 44-amino acid proteins with randomized TM domains. We screened this library to select small, dimeric TM proteins that were structurally unrelated to erythropoietin (EPO), but specifically activated the human EPO receptor (hEPOR). These proteins did not activate the murine EPOR or the PDGF{beta}R. Genetic studies with one of these activators suggested that it interacted with the TM domain of the hEPOR. Furthermore, this TM activator supported erythroid differentiation of primary human hematopoietic progenitor cells in vitro in the absence of EPO. Thus, we have changed the specificity of a protein so that it no longer recognizes its natural target but, instead, modulates an entirely different protein. This represents a novel strategy to isolate small artificial proteins that affect diverse membrane proteins. We suggest the word "traptamer" for these transmembrane aptamers.
关键词：bovine papilloma virus ; E5 protein ; expression libraries ; protein engineering ; traptamers
