Hung-Ju Chang

Rationalization and Design of the Complementarity Determining Region Sequences in an Antibody-Antigen Recognition Interface

Protein-protein interactions are critical determinants in biological systems. Engineered proteins binding to specific areas on protein surfaces could lead to therapeutics or diagnostics for treating diseases in humans. But designing epitope-specific protein-protein interactions with computational atomistic interaction free energy remains a difficult challenge. Here we show that, with the antibody-VEGF (vascular endothelial growth factor) interaction as a model system, the experimentally observed amino acid preferences in the antibody-antigen interface can be rationalized with 3-dimensional distributions of interacting atoms derived from the database of protein structures. Machine learning models established on the rationalization can be generalized to design amino acid preferences in antibody-antigen interfaces, for which the experimental validations are tractable with current high throughput synthetic antibody display technologies. Leave-one-out cross validation on the benchmark system yielded the accuracy, precision, recall (sensitivity) and specificity of the overall binary predictions to be 0.69, 0.45, 0.63, and 0.71 respectively, and the overall Matthews correlation coefficient of the 20 amino acid types in the 24 interface CDR positions was 0.312. The structure-based computational antibody design methodology was further tested with other antibodies binding to VEGF. The results indicate that the methodology could provide alternatives to the current antibody technologies based on animal immune systems in engineering therapeutic and diagnostic antibodies against predetermined antigen epitopes.

Factor Xa Active Site Substrate Specificity with Substrate Phage Display and Computational Molecular Modeling

Structural origin of substrate-enzyme recognition remains incompletely understood. In the model enzyme system of serine protease, canonical anti-parallel β-structure substrate-enzyme complex is the predominant hypothesis for the substrate-enzyme interaction at the atomic level. We used factor Xa (fXa), a key serine protease of the coagulation system, as a model enzyme to test the canonical conformation hypothesis. More than 160 fXa-cleavable substrate phage variants were experimentally selected from three designed substrate phage display libraries. These substrate phage variants were sequenced and their specificities to the model enzyme were quantified with quantitative enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay for substrate phage-enzyme reaction kinetics. At least three substrate-enzyme recognition modes emerged from the experimental data as necessary to account for the sequence-dependent specificity of the model enzyme. Computational molecular models were constructed, with both energetics and pharmacophore criteria, for the substrate-enzyme complexes of several of the representative substrate peptide sequences. In contrast to the canonical conformation hypothesis, the binding modes of the substrates to the model enzyme varied according to the substrate peptide sequence, indicating that an ensemble of binding modes underlay the observed specificity of the model serine protease.

Concentration dependence of carrier localization in InN epilayers

The authors studied the concentration dependence of carrier localization in InN epilayers using time-resolved photoluminescence (PL). Based on the emission-energy dependence of the PL decays and the PL quenching in thermalization, the localization energy of carriers in InN is found to increase with carrier concentration. The dependence of carrier concentration on the localization energy of carriers in InN can be explained by a model based on the transition between free electrons in the conduction band and localized holes in the deeper tail states. They suggest that carrier localization originates from the potential fluctuations of randomly located impurities.

Direct evidence of nanocluster-induced luminescence in InGaN epifilms

x-ray diffraction, scanning electron microscopy, energy dispersive x-ray spectrometry, and cathodoluminescence measurements have been employed to study the correlation between optical and structural properties in InGaN epitaxial films. In-rich quantum dots were found to be dispersed throughout the film. By the combination of these measurements, we clearly identify that brighter luminescence arises from In-rich regions while dimmer luminescence corresponds to the Ga-rich matrix regions.

Engineering Anti-vascular Endothelial Growth Factor Single Chain Disulfide-stabilized Antibody Variable Fragments (sc-dsFv) with Phage-displayed sc-dsFv Libraries

Phage display of antibody fragments from natural or synthetic antibody libraries with the single chain constructs combining the variable fragments (scFv) has been one of the most prominent technologies in antibody engineering. However, the nature of the artificial single chain constructs results in unstable proteins expressed on the phage surface or as soluble proteins secreted in the bacterial culture medium. The stability of the variable domain structures can be enhanced with interdomain disulfide bond, but the single chain disulfide-stabilized constructs (sc-dsFv) have yet to be established as a feasible format for bacterial phage display due to diminishing expression levels on the phage surface in known phage display systems. In this work, biological combinatorial searches were used to establish that the c-region of the signal sequence is critically responsible for effective expression and functional folding of the sc-dsFv on the phage surface. The optimum signal sequences increase the expression of functional sc-dsFv by 2 orders of magnitude compared with wild-type signal sequences, enabling the construction of phage-displayed synthetic antivascular endothelial growth factor sc-dsFv libraries. Comparison of the scFv and sc-dsFv variants selected from the phage-displayed libraries for vascular endothelial growth factor binding revealed the sequence preference differences resulting from the interdomain disulfide bond. These results underlie a new phage display format for antibody fragments with all the benefits from the scFv format but without the downside due to the instability of the dimeric interface in scFv.

Loop-sequence features and stability determinants in antibody variable domains by high-throughput experiments.

Protein loops are frequently considered as critical determinants in protein structure and function. Recent advances in high-throughput methods for DNA sequencing and thermal stability measurement have enabled effective exploration of sequence-structure-function relationships in local protein regions. Using these data-intensive technologies, we investigated the sequence-structure-function relationships of six complementarity-determining regions (CDRs) and ten non-CDR loops in the variable domains of a model vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF)-binding single-chain antibody variable fragment (scFv) whose sequence had been optimized via a consensus-sequence approach. The results show that only a handful of residues involving long-range tertiary interactions distant from the antigen-binding site are strongly coupled with antigen binding. This implies that the loops are passive regions in protein folding; the essential sequences of these regions are dictated by conserved tertiary interactions and the consensus local loop-sequence features contribute little to protein stability and function.

Molecular Evolution of Cystine-Stabilized Miniproteins as Stable Proteinaceous Binders

Small cystine-stabilized proteins are desirable scaffolds for therapeutics and diagnostics. Specific folding and binding properties of the proteinaceous binders can be engineered with combinatorial protein libraries in connection with artificial molecular evolution. The combinatorial protein libraries are composed of scaffold variants with random sequence variation, which inevitably produces a portion of the library sequences incompatible with the parent structure. Here, we used artificial molecular evolution to elucidate structure-determining residues in a smallest cystine-stabilized scaffold. The structural determinant information was then applied to designing cystine-stabilized miniproteins binding to human vascular endothelial growth factor. This work demonstrated a general methodology on engineering artificial cystine-stabilized proteins as antibody mimetics with simultaneously enhanced folding and binding properties.

Antibody Variable Domain Interface and Framework Sequence Requirements for Stability and Function by High-Throughput Experiments

Protein structural stability and biological functionality are dictated by the formation of intradomain cores and interdomain interfaces, but the intricate sequence-structure-function interrelationships in the packing of protein cores and interfaces remain difficult to elucidate due to the intractability of enumerating all packing possibilities and assessing the consequences of all the variations. In this work, groups of β strand residues of model antibody variable domains were randomized with saturated mutagenesis and the functional variants were selected for high-throughput sequencing and high-throughput thermal stability measurements. The results show that the sequence preferences of the intradomain hydrophobic core residues are strikingly flexible among hydrophobic residues, implying that these residues are coupled indirectly with antigen binding through energetic stabilization of the protein structures. By contrast, the interdomain interface residues are directly coupled with antigen binding. The interdomain interface should be treated as an integral part of the antigen-binding site.

In-plane optical anisotropy in InxGa1−xN∕GaN multiple quantum wells induced by Pockels effect

We have investigated the crystal orientation dependence of optical properties in InxGa1−xN∕GaN multiple quantum wells. The spectral peaks and intensity of the microphotoluminescence signal for different crystal orientations were found to have six-fold symmetry. Quite interestingly, the refractive index, obtained from the interference pattern, also varies with the crystal orientation. The 60° periodic anisotropy of electronic transitions as well as optical parameters was interpreted in terms of the Pockels effect induced by the strong built-in field in nitride heterojunctions. The linear dependence of the change of the refractive index on electric field is consistent with the prediction of the Pockels effect. Our result provides an alternative solution to improve the designs of photonic and electronic devices based on nitride semiconductors.

Design of Phage-Displayed Cystine-Stabilized Mini-Protein Libraries for Proteinaceous Binder Engineering

Cystine-stabilized mini-proteins are important scaffolds in the combinatorial search of binders for molecular recognition. The structural determinants of a cystine-stabilized scaffold are the critical residues determining the formation of the native disulfide-bonding configuration, and thus should remain unchanged in the combinatorial libraries so as to allow a large portion of the library sequences to be compatible with the scaffold structure. A high-throughput molecular evolution procedure has been developed to select and screen for the polypeptide sequences folding into a specific cystine-stabilized structure. Patterns of sequence preference that emerge from the resultant sequence profiles provide structural determinant information, which facilitates the designs of combinatorial libraries for combinatorial approaches as in phage display. This methodology enables artificial cystine-stabilized proteins to be engineered with enhanced folding and binding properties.