Part:BBa_K1668008

tcdA1-device

the part tcdA1 device is composed of arabinose inducible promoter pBad BBa_I0500, toxin protein TcdA1 coding sequnceBBa_K1668005 and composite part mCherry BBa_K1668011.

We use the device to tandem express toxic protein TcdA1 and mCherry. Toxic protein TcdA1 is a macro channel forming toxin used for termite control in our project and mCherry is a reporter.

Sequence and Features

Assembly Compatibility:

10
COMPATIBLE WITH RFC[10]
12
INCOMPATIBLE WITH RFC[12]
Illegal NheI site found at 1205
Illegal NheI site found at 8257
Illegal NheI site found at 8590
21
INCOMPATIBLE WITH RFC[21]
Illegal BglII site found at 1651
Illegal BamHI site found at 1144
23
COMPATIBLE WITH RFC[23]
25
INCOMPATIBLE WITH RFC[25]
Illegal NgoMIV site found at 7691
Illegal NgoMIV site found at 8351
Illegal AgeI site found at 979
Illegal AgeI site found at 3527
1000
INCOMPATIBLE WITH RFC[1000]
Illegal SapI site found at 961

Characterization

OVERVIEW

We construct the device tcdA1 to tandem express toxic protein TcdA1 and reporter mCherry. Toxic protein TcdA1 is used to kill termites in our project.

TcdA1, one of the biggest proteins in bacteria (285kDa), is first found in Photorhabdus luminescens. It forms channels and assists other toxins across the cell membrane(1). It belongs to Tc toxic protein family, which is widely distributed among different gram-negative and gram-positive bacteria.

We clone and standardize the gene into standard plasmid pSB1C3. After confirmation of digestion and sequencing, we transform the plasmid into E.coli BL21(DE3) to achieve better expression level. Despite we observe that transformants have obviously turned red, we didn’t figure out the expected protein band in SDS-PAGE. Judging that the protein is considerably huge in bacteria, more improvements are needed.

BACKGROUND

TcdA1 is a pore-forming macro-protein, which can keep the ability to form a pore in a large pH range (from 4 to 11). To be noticed, at pH 11, the pore-forming activity of TcdA1 is more than 100-fold greater than at pH 6. As the midguts of most insects are alkaline, tc toxic proteins are effective by feeding on insects, including termites.

In 2013, the structure of TcdA1 was revealed by researchers and reported in nature(1). As displayed in Figure1a&b, the TcdA1 is composed of three parts: N-terminal a-helical domain(brown), the central b-sheet domain(green) and the C-terminal pore-forming domain(yellow). The protein has two states: pre-pore state and pore state. The pore-forming domain (Figure 1c) sticks out to form pore, changing into pore state (Figure 2).

Moreover, the TcdA1 toxin helps other toxins to enter the cell membrane. Naturally in strain TT01, TcdA1 is expressed homologously with other toxins, for example, TcdB1 and Tcc toxins. TcdA1 helps to transfer the latter into the cell to maximum the toxic effect(Figure 3).

RESULTS

PLASMID CONSTRUCTION

Figure 4 Digestion confirmation of device tcdA1 in pSB1A2 backbone.

Figure 5 Digestion confirmation of device tcdA1 in pSB1C3 backbone.

5μl samples of the double enzyme digestion products for tcdA1-device were loaded onto a 1% BioRad Ready Agarose Mini Gel, then subjected to AGE. See (protocol) for AGE parameters. Sizes of the XbaI and PstI–cleaved assemblies were determined by AGE analysis. The DNA size standards were the DL5,000 DNA Marker (M2; TaKaRa, Cat#3428A) and 1kb DNA Ladder (Dye Plus)(M2; TaKaRa, Cat#3426A). Bands were visualized with a Shanghai Peiqing JS-380A Fluorescence Imager.

First we construct the tcdA1 device in pSB1A2. Our target fragments can be clearly seen in the right position (figure 4). As the fragment is a little big(7.2k), the efficiency is low when we change the backbone to pSB1C3 and the unwanted fragment is hard to explain(Figure 5).

DNA SEQUNCING

We have sequenced the parts with standard primers VF2 and VR. The sequence of the 9.7k part shows 100% agreement with the desired sequence.

TOXIN EXPRESSION

BACTERIA CULTURE

Figure 6 Expression of reporter mCherry in LB solid medium with arabinose and chloromycetin.

Figure 7 Expression of reporter mCherry in LB liqiud medium with arabinose and chloromycetin.

The solid or liquid culture medium is LB culture with 34ug/ml chloromycetin and 80mM arabinose.

Both the antibiotics and arabinose are added after the culture cools down to 60℃. 2%(w/v) of agar is added in solid medium.

It can be clearly seen that the recombinant turned red, indicating the expression of reporter mCherry. As mCherry is located behind target gene and shares a promoter with target gene, the target gene may be expressed to a great extent.

SDS-PAGE

Figure 8 SDS-PAGE results of four devices we constructed.

5ul sample is loaded in a 10% SDS-PAGE separation gel. We use 250kDa marker Precision Plus Protein™ Dual Color Standards #161-0374. Parameters can be seen in protocols.

According to the result of SDS-PAGE, target protein(285kDa) is not eyeable(line 2) compared with the negative control, native BL21 (DE3) strain without engineering(line 1). However, the recombinant tcdA1 strain turns red, indicating that it expressed mCherry, which can be confirmed in SDS-PAGE.

There are two possible explanations to the results. One is that the expression level of macro protein like TcdA1 is extremely low, which is unrecognizable in SDS-PAGE. The other is that TcdA1 didn’t express out of unknown reason.

TERMITES in vivo EXPERIMENTS

Figure 9 Toxin effect of TcdA1 on termites.

We fed the same amount of termites separately with TcdA1-expressing BL21, tcdA1-expressing BL21 embedded with CNCs and control group mCherry-expressing BL21. For more details please go to our Protocol http://2015.igem.org/Team:ZJU-China/Project/Protocol

However, only one termite died in six days and further improvements are needed. In addition, further works are needed on the large-amount expression of tcdA1.

REFERENCE

1. C. Gatsogiannis et al., NATURE 495, 520 (2013-03-20, 2013).
2. D. Meusch et al., NATURE 508, 61 (2014).