The antigen GA733 is a cell-surface highly expressed glycoprotein on most human colorectal carcinomas. GA733 can be characterized as a cancer vaccine. In this study, GA733 was fused to the human immunoglobulin IgG Fc fragment to become recombinant gene GA733-Fc. Based on this, 4 recombinant genes were constructed as follows: GA733-Fc with signal peptide sequence and fusion of ER retention sequence (KDEL) (spGA733-FcK), GA733-Fc with signal sequence (spGA733-Fc), GA733-Fc fused to ER retention sequence (GA733-FcK) without signal peptide and GA733-Fc without signal peptide. Baculovirus-insect cell expression system is widely used for the high level production of recombinant proteins especially for glycoproteins. Constructed 4 recombinant genes were cloned to baculovirus express vectors. DH10Bac E.coli.-mediated transformation was used to generate recombinant bacmid DNA. Recombinant DNA was confirmed by PCR. Insect cell was transfected by bacmid to produce the recombinant baculovirus infects insect cell to produce recombinant protein. Western blot and sandwich ELISA showed the expression of recombinant proteins. Each cell lines (sf9 and HighFive) differed in recombinant proteins production level and protein secretion capability. N-Glycosylation analysis showed the function of signal peptide and ER retention sequence (KDEL). Taken together, baculovirus-insect cell system can be used to express recombinant GA733-Fc glycoproteins.

Colorectal cancer is the third most commonly diagnosed cancer in the world, nearly all patients diagnosed with this cancer die from it. Antibodies are glycoprotein molecules, which can efficiently recognize and eliminate specific pathogenic and disease antigens. Antibody researches for the last several decades have demonstrated the potential of therapeutic antibodies to fight cancer. Monoclonal antibody (mAb) CO17-1A recognizes the tumor-associated antigen GA733-2, a cell surface glycoprotein highly expressed in colorectal carcinoma cell, which is applicable for preventing and curing colorectal cancer. We have currently established baculovirus insect cell expression system to produce anti-colorectal cancer mAb CO17-1A. In this study, mAb CO17-1A was expressed in the transgenic insect cell line SWT4, which has humanized glycosylation processing pathway. Immunoblot confirmed that mAb CO17-1A properly expressed in SWT4. mAb CO17-1A was purified using protein G affinity column. In addition, Maldi-TOF verified that the mAb fused to KDEL, ER retention signal had high mannose type of glycan structure whereas the mAb without KDEL had partially humanized glycan structure. These results suggest that the insect cell expression system with the SWT4 possibly can be used as a useful alternative way to produce full-size mAb with humanized glycan structures for cancer immunotherapy.

Flavonoids have a range of biological activities, including anti-allergic, anti-inflammatory, anti-microbial, and anti-cancer activities, as demonstrated by in vitro studies. In this study, we investigated whether luteolin can be applied to suppression of lipopolysaccharide (LPS)-stimulated inflammatory responses in murine macrophages. Luteolin was found to reduce nitric oxide (NO) production in LPS-stimulated Raw 264.7 cells. In addition, expression of inducible nitric oxide synthetase (iNOS), cyclooxygenase-2 (COX-2), and pro-inflammatory cytokine tumor necrotic factor-α (TNF-α) at the mRNA and protein levels were decreased. These inhibitory effects were found to be caused by the blockade of nuclear factor kappa-light- chain-enhancer of activated B cells (NF-κB) activation and phosphorylation of mitogen-activated protein (MAP) kinase family, extracellular signal-regulated kinases 1/2 (ERK1/2), c-Jun N-terminal kinase (JNK), and p38 MAP kinase. In addition, pre-treatment with luteolin resulted in reduced ganglioside expression levels and inhibited expression of GT1b in Raw 264.7 cells. On the basis of these observations, we suggest that luteolin has potential as an anti-inflammatory drug candidate, and ganglioside GT1b may play a role in the inflammatory process.