KEYWORDS: Glucose, Proteins, Luminescence, Sensors, Fluorescence resonance energy transfer, Green fluorescent protein, Fluorescent proteins, Yeast, In vivo imaging, Molybdenum
The glucose-mediated conformational changes in the glucose binding protein (GBP) have been exploited in the development of fluorescence based glucose sensors. The fluorescence response is generated by a polarity sensitive dye attached to a specific site. Such fluorescent sensors respond to submicromolar glucose at diffusion-controlled rates mimicking the wild type. However, such sensors have been limited to in vitro glucose sensing because of the preliminary dye-labeling step. In the study described here, the dye-labeling step is omitted by genetically encoding the GBP with two green fluorescent mutants namely, the green fluorescent protein (GFP) and the yellow fluorescent protein (YFP) in the N- and C-terminal ends, respectively. These two GFP mutants comprise a fluorescence resonance energy transfer (FRET) donor and acceptor pair. Thus, when glucose binds with GBP, the conformational changes affect the FRET efficiency yielding a dose-dependent response. A potential application for this FRET-based glucose biosensor is online glucose sensing in bioprocessing and cell culture. This was demonstrated by the measurement of glucose consumption in yeast fermentation. Further development of this system should yield in vivo measurement of glucose in bioprocesses.
Glucose is the major source of carbon, and glutamine is the major source of nitrogen in cell culture media. Thus, glucose and glutamine monitoring are important in maintaining optimal conditions in industrial bioprocesses. Here we report reagentless glucose and glutamine sensors using the E. coli glucose binding protein (GBP) and the glutamine binding protein (GlnBP). Both of these proteins are derived from the permease system of the gram-negative bacteria. The Q26C variant of GBP was labeled at the 26-position with anilino-naphthalene sulfonate (ANS), while the S179C variant of GlnBP was labeled at the 179-position with acrylodan. The ANS and acrylodan emissions are quenched in the presence of glucose and glutamine, respectively. The acrylodan-labeled GlnBP was labeled at the N-terminal with ruthenium bis-(2,2’-bipyridyl)-1,10-phenanthroline-9-isothiocyanate. The ruthenium acts as a non-responsive long-lived reference. The apparent binding constant, Kd’, of 8.0 μM glucose was obtained from the decrease in intensity of ANS in GBP. The reliability of the method in monitoring glucose during yeast fermentation was determined by comparison with the YSI Biochemistry Analyzer. The apparent binding constant, Kd’, of 0.72 μM glutamine was calculated from the ratio of emission intensities of acrylodan and ruthenium (I515/I610) in GlnBP. The presence of the long-lived ruthenium allowed for modulation sensing at lower frequencies (1-10 MHz) approaching an accuracy of ± 0.02 μM. The conversion of the GBP into a similar ratiometric sensor was described.
A baculovirus expression system was used to produce DsRed fusion protein in insect larvae. As the baculovirus/insect larvae system requires precise harvest timing to achieve high yield of protein, a low-cost miniature all-solid state optical probe was used for detection of the protein concentrations in the frozen larvae. Three batches of infected larvae were monitored at different post-infection times. The calibration curve of the probe was obtained by simultaneous measurements both in laboratory fluorimeter and using gel electrophoresis analysis. The results show good correlation between the optical measurements and the standard laboratory technique.
We describe a new method for fluorescence sensing based on measurements of the steady state polarization of an analyte- sensitive fluorophore in the presence of a reference fluorophore with known polarization. The basic concept is that the polarization of a mixture reflects a weighted average of the polarization of the emitting species. By use of reference fluorophores the starting values can be near zero, or near 0.9 for oriented films which contain the reference fluorophore. Changing intensities of the sensing fluorophore due to the analyte result in changes in the polarization of the combined emission. A wide dynamic range is available because of the freedom to select high or low starting polarization values. Polarization-based sensing was demonstrated for pH using 6- carboxy fluorescein. We also show that polarization sensing can be used for measurements of oxygen and glucose. Polarization sensing can have numerous applications in clinical and analytical chemistry.
We devised an optical assay for glucose based on the genetically-engineered glucose/galactose binding protein (GGBP) from E. coli and phase-modulation fluorometry. A single cysteine mutation was introduced at position 26 of GGBP. When labeled with the sulfhydryl-reactive probe I-ANS, GGBP showed a more than 50% decrease in florescence intensity with increasing glucose concentration (Kd approximately 1 (mu) M). This is consistent with the glucose-bound structure of GGBP where residue 26 becomes more exposed to the aqueous media. Since minimal lifetime changes were observed with glucose binding, a modulation sensor was devised wherein a long lifetime ruthenium metal-ligand complex (Ru) was painted on the surface of the cuvette containing ANS26-GGBP. Glucose binding resulted in changes in the relative intensities of ANS26-GGBP and Ru which were observed as dramatic changes in the modulation at a low frequency of 2.1 MHz. The modulation measured at 2.1 MHz accurately determines the glucose concentration to plus or minus 0.2 (mu) M.
Access to the requested content is limited to institutions that have purchased or subscribe to SPIE eBooks.
You are receiving this notice because your organization may not have SPIE eBooks access.*
*Shibboleth/Open Athens users─please
sign in
to access your institution's subscriptions.
To obtain this item, you may purchase the complete book in print or electronic format on
SPIE.org.
INSTITUTIONAL Select your institution to access the SPIE Digital Library.
PERSONAL Sign in with your SPIE account to access your personal subscriptions or to use specific features such as save to my library, sign up for alerts, save searches, etc.