Influence of Signal Peptide Sequences on the Expression
of Heterogeneous Proteins in Pichia pastoris

XIONG Ai-Sheng, PENG Ri-He, LI Xian, FAN Hui-Qin, YAO Quan-Hong^*
GUO Mei-Jin¹, ZHANG Si-Liang¹

( Agro-Biotechnology Research Center of Shanghai Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Shanghai Key Laboratory of Agricultural Genetics and Breeding, Shanghai 201106, China;
¹ Bio-engineering Department of East China University of Science and Technology, Shanghai 200237, China )

Abstract Pichia pastoris has been developed to be a very efficient expression host for the heterogeneous proteins since its alcohol promoter was isolated and cloned, and its transformation technique was established. For further improving the secretion expression of heterogeneous proteins, in this research, the signal sequences were studied. At first, the Saccharomyces cerevisiae mating factor &agr; prepro-leader sequence was synthesized using successive PCR and designated as MF4I. Then, ten different signal sequences were constructed by adding the N-terminal residues of Pichia pastoris Aox1 protein to the N-terminal of the MF4I. These ten signal sequences were used for directing phytase gene secretion in Pichia pastoris, the secretion of phytase were increased in Pichia pastoris strains containing new signal sequence. Among these strains, the phytase secretion was highest in strain contain signal sequence added with A, I, P three Aox1 N-terminal residues; the phytase secretion of Pichia pastoris was 90 mg/L in flake. The secretion was six-fold of that with original Saccharomyces cerevisiae mating factor &agr; prepro-leader sequence. In addition, insert of ten residues E E A E A E A E P K can further increase the phytase secretion by 35%, the secretion reach 120 mg/L.

Key words Pichia pastoris; synthetic signal sequence; expression vector; high expression

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