Split-enzyme immunoassay to monitor EGFR-HER2 heterodimerization on cell surfaces

Development of a bioluminescent homogenous nanobody-based immunoassay for the detection of prostate-specific antigen (PSA)

Prostate cancer is the most prevalent cancer in men. At present, the diagnosis and screening of prostate cancer rely on the essential biomarker known as prostate-specific antigen (PSA). The main purpose of this study was to develop a novel immunoassay for the detection of PSA based on a tri-part split-nanoluciferase system and a nanobody targeting PSA. In our approach, two small components of the split-nanoluciferase, referred to as β9 and β10, were individually fused to two anti-PSA nanobodies, N7 and N23. When these proteins bind to PSA and in the presence of the third nanoluciferase component, called Δ11S, the split-nanoluciferase components are brought into close proximity, facilitating the reassembly of the active nanoluciferase and activation of luminescence. These proteins were expressed in a bacterial expression system, purified, and employed for the intended immunoassay. The developed immunoassay demonstrated the capability to sensitively detect PSA within a linear range from 1.0 to 20.0 ng/mL with LOD of 0.4 ng/mL, and the results obtained through this immunoassay agreed with those derived from the ELISA. Our study indicates that the homogeneous immunoassay developed with nanobodies exhibits remarkable specificity for PSA and can serve as a reliable, fast, and user-friendly test for detecting PSA.

Chimeric Protein Switch Biosensors

Rapid detection of protein and small-molecule analytes is a valuable technique across multiple disciplines, but most in vitro testing of biological or environmental samples requires long, laborious processes and trained personnel in laboratory settings, leading to long wait times for results and high expenses. Fusion of recognition with reporter elements has been introduced to detection methods such as enzyme-linked immunoassays (ELISA), with enzyme-conjugated secondary antibodies removing one of the many incubation and wash steps. Chimeric protein switch biosensors go further and provide a platform for homogenous mix-and-read assays where long wash and incubation steps are eradicated from the process. Chimeric protein switch biosensors consist of an enzyme switch (the reporter) coupled to a recognition element, where binding of the analyte results in switching the activity of the reporter enzyme on or off. Several chimeric protein switch biosensors have successfully been developed for analytes ranging from small molecule drugs to large protein biomarkers. There are two main formats of chimeric protein switch biosensor developed, one-component and multi-component, and these formats exhibit unique advantages and disadvantages. Genetically fusing a recognition protein to the enzyme switch has many advantages in the production and performance of the biosensor. A range of immune and synthetic binding proteins have been developed as alternatives to antibodies, including antibody mimetics or antibody fragments. These are mainly small, easily manipulated proteins and can be genetically fused to a reporter for recombinant expression or manipulated to allow chemical fusion. Here, aspects of chimeric protein switch biosensors will be reviewed with a comparison of different classes of recognition elements and switching mechanisms.

Split-Protein Therapeutic Platforms: Identifying Binder Pairs

Therapeutic proteins, including enzymes, interferons, interleukins, and growth factors, are emerging as important modalities to treat many diseases that elude management by small molecule drugs. One challenge of protein treatment is the propensity for off-target or systemic activity. A promising approach to overcome such toxicity is to create conditionally active constructs by splitting the therapeutic protein into two, or more, inactive fragments and by fusing these fragments to binders (e.g., antibodies) that target distinct epitopes on a cell surface. When these antibodies bind to their respective targets, the protein fragments are brought into proximity and then reconstitute into the active form of the therapeutic protein. In this chapter, we describe approaches to determine antibody pairs that enable the reconstitution of the active protein. General computational and empirical methods are provided to facilitate the identification of pairs starting only from protein sequence data.

Tri-part NanoLuc as a new split technology with potential applications in chemical biology: a mini-review

For several decades, researchers have been using protein-fragment complementation assay (PCA) approaches for biosensing to study protein-protein interaction for a variety of aims, including viral infection, cellular apoptosis, G protein coupled receptor (GPCR) signaling, drug and substrate screening, and protein aggregation and protein editing by CRISPR/Cas9. As a reporter, NanoLuc (NLuc), a smaller and the brightest engineered luciferase derived from deep-sea shrimp Oplophorus gracilirostris, has been found to have many benefits over other luminescent enzymes in PCA. Inspired by the split green fluorescent protein (GFP) and its β-barrel structure, two split NLuc consisting of peptide fragments have been reported including the binary and ternary NLuc systems. NanoBiT® (large fragment + peptide) has been used extensively. In contrast, tripart split NLuc (large fragment + 2 peptides) has been applied and hardly used, while it has some advantages over NanoBiT in some studies. Nevertheless, tripart NLuc has some drawbacks and challenges to overcome but has several potential characteristics to become a multifunctional and powerful tool. In this review, several aspects of tripart NLuc are studied and a brief comparison with NanoBiT® is given.

Complementation Dependent Enzyme Prodrug Therapy Enables Targeted Activation of Prodrug on HER2-Positive Cancer Cells

Antibodies have been explored for decades for the delivery of small molecule cytotoxins directly to diseased cells. In antibody-directed enzyme prodrug therapy (ADEPT), antibodies are armed with enzymes that activate nontoxic prodrugs at tumor sites. However, this strategy failed clinically due to off-target toxicity associated with the enzyme prematurely activating prodrug systemically. We describe here the design of an antibody-fragment split enzyme platform that regains activity after binding to HER2, allowing for site-specific activation of a small molecule prodrug. We evaluated a library of fusion constructs for efficient targeting and complementation to identify the most promising split enzyme pair. The optimal pair was screened for substrate specificity among chromogenic, fluorogenic, and prodrug substrates. Evaluation of this system on HER2-positive cells revealed 7-fold higher toxicity of the activated prodrug over prodrug treatment alone. Demonstrating the potential of this strategy against a known clinical target provides the basis for a unique therapeutic platform in oncology.

Homogeneous surrogate virus neutralization assay to rapidly assess neutralization activity of anti-SARS-CoV-2 antibodies

The COVID-19 pandemic triggered the development of numerous diagnostic tools to monitor infection and to determine immune response. Although assays to measure binding antibodies against SARS-CoV-2 are widely available, more specific tests measuring neutralization activities of antibodies are immediately needed to quantify the extent and duration of protection that results from infection or vaccination. We previously developed a 'Serological Assay based on a Tri-part split-NanoLuc® (SATiN)' to detect antibodies that bind to the spike (S) protein of SARS-CoV-2. Here, we expand on our previous work and describe a reconfigured version of the SATiN assay, called Neutralization SATiN (Neu-SATiN), which measures neutralization activity of antibodies directly from convalescent or vaccinated sera. The results obtained with our assay and other neutralization assays are comparable but with significantly shorter preparation and run time for Neu-SATiN. As the assay is modular, we further demonstrate that Neu-SATiN enables rapid assessment of the effectiveness of vaccines and level of protection against existing SARS-CoV-2 variants of concern and can therefore be readily adapted for emerging variants.

Bioluminescent RAPPID Sensors for the Single-Step Detection of Soluble Axl and Multiplex Analysis of Cell Surface Cancer Biomarkers

Early diagnosis of cancer is essential for the efficacy of treatment. Our group recently developed RAPPID, a bioluminescent immunoassay platform capable of measuring a wide panel of biomarkers directly in solution. Here, we developed and systematically screened different RAPPID sensors for sensitive detection of the soluble fraction of Axl (sAxl), a cell surface receptor that is overexpressed in several types of cancer. The best-performing RAPPID sensor, with a limit of detection of 8 pM and a >9-fold maximal change in emission ratio, was applied to measure Axl in three different contexts: clinically relevant sAxl levels (∼0.5 and ∼1 nM) in diluted blood plasma, proteolytically cleaved Axl in the cell culture medium of A431 and HeLa cancer cells, and Axl on the membrane of A431 cells. We further extended the sensor toolbox by developing dual-color RAPPID for simultaneous detection of Axl and EGFR on A431 and HeLa cells, as well as an AND-gate RAPPID that measures the concurrent presence of these two cell surface receptors on the same cell. These new RAPPID sensors provide attractive alternatives for more laborious protein detection and quantification methods such as FACS and immunostainings, due to their simple practical implantation and low intrinsic background signal.