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View additional product information for PichiaPink™ Secretion Signal Set - FAQs (A11155)
34 product FAQs found
Generally, large colonies represent transformants containing pPIC6/pPIC6α integrants, while small colonies represent transformants containing pPIC6/pPIC6α non-integrants. These non-integrants have transduced the pPIC6/pPIC6α plasmid, and therefore, exhibit a low level of blasticidin resistance in the initial selection process. Upon subsequent screening, these non-integrant transformants do not retain blasticidin resistance.
When choosing a blasticidin-resistant transformant for your expression studies, we recommend that you pick blasticidin-resistant colonies from the initial transformation plate and streak them on a second YPD plate containing the appropriate concentration of blasticidin. Select transformants that remain blasticidin-resistant for further studies.
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Here are some suggestinos:
- Make sure that you have harvested cells during log-phase growth (OD <1.0 generally).
- If electroporation is being used, see the electroporator manual for suggested conditions. Vary electroporation parameters if necessary.
- Use more DNA.
- Use freshly made competent cells.
- If the LiCl transformation method is being used, try boiling the carrier DNA.
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Here are some things to consider:
- If the OD of cells that are used is too high, they will not spheroplast. Do not overgrow cells.
- Do not use old cells and make sure that they are in log phase of growth.
- Make sure to mix zymolyase well before using. Zymolyase is more of a suspension than a solution.
- Make the PEG solution fresh each time and check the pH.
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Use the following high cell density protocol for pGAP clones. Feed carbon until the desired density is reached (300 to 400 g/L wet cell weight (WCW)). If the protein is well-behaved in the fermenter, increase to 300-400 g/L WCW as with methanol inducible clones. These densities can be reached in less than 48 hours of fermentation. We have fermented constitutive expressers on glycerol using these protocols with good results. Some modifications to the Fermentation Basal Salts Medium that you might want to make are:
1) Substitute 2% dextrose for the 4% glycerol in the batch medium.
2) Substitute 40% dextrose for the 50% glycerol in the fed-batch medium.
3) Feed the 40% dextrose at 12 mL/L/hr (Jim Cregg has published data on expression using several carbon sources as substrates; dextrose gave the highest levels of expression).
4) Yeast extract and peptone may be added to the medium for protein stability.
One warning: If you are working with His- strains, they remain His- after transformation with pGAPZ. Fermentation in minimal medium will require addition of histidine to the fermenter.
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No, you cannot autoclave methanol. There are two approaches to this, depending a bit on the size of the bioreactor and the volumes involved. You can either dilute to working concentration and filter-sterilize with a filter suitable for alcohols, or you can just assume that methanol is sterile (it should be) and dilute into sterile water. For the ammonium hydroxide solution, you should also not autoclave it. You can assume the 30% stock solution is sterile (nothing should live in this solution) and dilute into sterile water to the working concentration.
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The use of antibiotics is not recommended, because most antibiotics become inactivated at the low pH of the medium during Pichia fermentation. In other words, addition of antibiotics such as ampicillin or kanamycin won't hurt the fermentation process, but because of the low pH the antibiotics become inactivated or may even precipitate out. For best results, use good sterile techniques.
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You don't have to add sulfuric acid to your PTM1 salts or fermentation medium. It would serve no purpose, other than maybe help dissolve the salts.
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Yes. The cells will do fine in YPD, but there are two drawbacks: The foaming that occurs in the richer YPD is very difficult to control, and the richer medium makes it difficult to purify secreted proteins from the medium. The BMGY formulation remedies both of these problems.
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The use of mixed feeds is mainly due for "turning down" the level of expression for proteins that are troublesome for Pichia. We have generally used mixed feeds for MutS clones. The idea is to keep the culture in a state of more active growth, and thus "happier" to express proteins.
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You need not add any acid to Pichia fermentation media. A healthy culture always acidifies the medium. If the pH of the culture is increasing, it is a sign of carbon source depletion or ill health of the culture.
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It depends whether the clone is Mut+ or a MutS.
For a Mut+ clone, you should expect that initially (in the first 2-4 hours of induction), the oxygen uptake rate of the culture would be lower than that at the end of the glycerol batch phase. After the culture becomes adapted to methanol, the oxygen uptake rate will significantly increase, if the culture is healthy (i.e., not poisoned by too much methanol). One should run methanol spike tests during fermentation of Mut+ clones.
For a MutS clone, one can expect that the oxygen uptake rate will be lower than that at the end of the glycerol batch phase throughout most of the fermentation. One has to be very careful not to poison MutS clones.
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We do not offer any protocols for Pichia fermentation. Please refer to the document titled “Pichia Fermentation Guidelines” on our website.
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The following protocol has been used numerous times for Pichia pastoris. It uses a 250 mL culture that is eventually scaled down to 1 mL aliquots of each strain.
- Inoculate 10 mL YPD media with Pichia strain and grow O/N, shaking at 30 degrees C.
- In the morning, check the OD600. To get them in log phase by the afternoon, dilute cells to hit an OD600 of approximately 3.0 at 4 or 5 pm.
- When the OD600 reaches approximately 3.0, inoculate 250 mL of YPD with 250 µL of culture. The objective is to have healthy, log-phase cells in the morning at an OD600 of around 1.0.
- If the OD600 is ~1.0, spin the cells in a 1 L bottle at 3K rpm for 10 minutes.
- Gently resuspend in 250 mL cold dH20.
- Transfer to a 500 mL centrifuge bottle and spin at 3K for 10 min. Repeat.
- Resuspend in 20 mL cold 1 M sorbitol and transfer to a 50 mL conical tube.
- Spin at 3K rpm for 10 min.
- Resuspend in 1 mL 1M sorbitol, and keep on ice.
- Use 80 µL of host strain for each electroporation.
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Inclusion of 1 M sorbitol in YPD plates stabilizes electroporated cells, as they appear to be somewhat osmotically sensitive.
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PEG 4000 seems to work best for yeast transformations, although PEG 3350 has been used in-house with success.
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We recommend electroporation for transformation of Pichia. Electroporation yields 10e3 to 10e4 transformants per µg of linearized DNA and does not destroy the cell wall of Pichia. If you do not have access to an electroporation device, you may use the Spheroplast Kit for Yeast(Cat. No. K172001), PEG 1000 protocol (page 78 of the manual), LiCl protocol (page 80 of the manual), or the Pichia EasyComp Transformation Kit (Cat. No. K173001). We do not recommend spheroplasting for transformation of Pichia with plasmids containing an antibiotic resistance marker. Damage to the cell wall leads to increased sensitivity to the antibiotic, causing putative transformants to die before they express the antibiotic resistance gene. In contrast, spheroplasting can be used for transformation of PichiaPink vectors because these vectors are selected using auxotrophic markers.
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Here are the different methods available for Pichia transformation:
Pichia EasyComp Transformation Kit: easy-to-use, ready-made reagents
This method produces chemically competent Pichia cells and provides a rapid and convenient alternative to electroporation. Transformation efficiency is low (transformation of 50 µl of competent cells with 3 µg of linearized plasmid DNA yields about 50 colonies), and hence it is very difficult to isolate multi-copy integrants. Higher transformation efficiencies are often obtained with frozen versus freshly prepared cells.
PEG 1000 transformation: easy, do-it-yourself protocol
It is critical to add DNA to frozen cell samples, as cell competence decreases very rapidly after the cells thaw-even when held on ice. To perform multiple transformations, it is recommended to process them in groups of six at a time. The PEG method is usually better than LiCl, but not as good as spheroplasting or electroporation for transformation. However, it is convenient for people who do not have an electroporation device. The transformation efficiency is 10e2 to 10e3 transformants per mg of DNA.
Lithium chloride transformation: easy, do-it-yourself protocol
This method is an alternative to transformation by electroporation. Competent cells must be made fresh. Transformation efficiency is 10e2 to 10e3 transformants per µg linearized DNA. Note: Lithium acetate does not work with Pichia pastoris. Use only lithium chloride.
Electroporation: easy and high efficiency, do-it-yourself protocol; does not destroy the cell wall
Competent cells must be made fresh. Transformation efficiency is 10e3 to 10e4 transformants per µg of linearized DNA.
Spheroplast Kit for Yeast (K172001): cell wall digested to allow DNA to enter the cell; the procedure involves treating cells with zymolyase to create spheroplasts.
You must determine the optimal time to treat with zymolyase by taking OD600 readings at increasing time points. Longer incubations with zymolyase result in reduced transformation efficiency. Spheroplasts are combined with DNA and then plated. Transformation efficiency is 10e3 to 10e4 transformants per µg of linearized DNA.
Note: Spheroplasting is not recommended for Pichia vectors with an antibiotic resistance marker. Damage to the cell wall leads to increased sensitivity to the antibiotic, causing putative transformants to die before they express the antibiotic resistance gene. In contrast, spheroplasting can be used for transformation of PichiaPink vectors, because these vectors are selected using auxotrophic markers.
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All of our Pichia strains are homothallic strains. This means that they actually switch mating type with each generation. In Saccharomyces strains, this would lead to the culture rapidly becoming entirely diploid. In contrast, Pichia pastoris strains mate inefficiently to form diploids. Therefore, at any given time, the cells in the population are both “a” and “alpha” mating types.
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Certain yeast strains secrete a protein toxin, which inhibits the growth of sensitive pathogens and yeasts. Studies have shown that production of the toxin is dependent on the presence of linear, double-stranded DNA plasmids in the killer yeasts. In the yeast Pichia pastoris, two linear double-stranded DNA plasmids have been identified. In the publication listed below, the search for toxin-producing capability in P. pastoris was conducted and no killer activity could be detected when 14 different indicator strains were tested.
Reference: Banerjee and Verma (2000) Search for a Novel Killer Toxin in Yeast Pichia pastoris. Plasmid 43:181-183.
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No, Pichia pastoris vectors will not work in Pichia methanolica; both Pichia pastoris and Pichia methanolica vectors have promoters derived from alcohol oxidase but they are not homologous, so the Pichia pastoris vectors will not be able to integrate or replicate in Pichia methanolica. The TEF1 promoter is probably functional in Pichia methanolica.
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There is no need for maintaining Zeocin antibiotic selection in the Pichia expression medium, since Pichia pastoris transformants are stable integrants with the gene of interest integrated into the genome.
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A secreted protein will be exposed to the glycosylation machinery and might be glycosylated if the protein contains the standard N-linked or O-linked glycosylation amino acid consensus sequence.
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You can supplement with 10% culture volume of a 5% methanol (in water) solution to regenerate the 0.5% methanol concentration each day.
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Zeocin antibiotic can be spread on top of YPD plates for selection of yeast if necessary. There is a report that this works well when done with 10-15 3 mm glass beads. However, it is recommended that some optimization be performed, since top-spreading may dilute the antibiotic's effectiveness.
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The alpha secretion signal is from S. cerevisiae and is a general yeast secretion signal that has been used in many species including P. pastoris, K. lactis, etc.
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The alpha “signal sequence” (which really contains both the alpha signal sequence and pro-hormone leader sequences) is cleaved 4 times by 3 different enzymes in the Pichia cell. First, near the N-terminus by signal peptidase; second, by Kex2p after the dibasic (Lys-Arg) signal slightly upstream of the multiple cloning site, and then twice by Ste13p to remove the 2 Glu-Ala repeats.
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Although the efficiency may differ from one signal to the next, in general mammalian secretion signals are functional in yeast.
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It is doubtful as to whether codon usage plays as great a role in general, as is commonly believed. Translation initiation is probably more of a rate-limiting step than elongation.
Use the following codon usage list to design your gene in the order of preference:
Glycine: GGT or GGA
Glutamic acid: GAG or GAA
Aspartic acid: GAC or GAT
Valine: GTT or GTC
Alanine: GCT or GCC
Arginine: AGA or CGT
Serine: TCT or TCC
Lysine: AAG
Asparagine: AAC
Methionine: ATG
Isoleucine: ATT or ATC
Threonine: ACT or ACC
Tryptophan: TGG
Cysteine: TGT
Tyrosine: TAC
Leucine: TTG or CTG
Phenylalanine: TTC
Glutamine: CAA or CAG
Histidine: CAC or CAT
Proline: CCA or CCT
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An OD600 of 1 is equivalent to 5 x 10e7 Pichia cells/mL. After overnight (O/N) growth from a colony pick, a Pichia culture generally reaches OD 1.3-1.5 (in 2-5 mL).
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Doubling time is 2-3.5 hrs: Pichia has a doubling time of about 2 hrs of glycerol. The yeast grow slowly at 30 degrees C and it takes at least 3 days for colonies. In practice, it takes anywhere from 3 to 7 days to get nice-sized colonies.
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The Pichia genome is similar to that of other yeast, approximately 1.5 x 107 bp (similar to S. cerevisiae) and contains 4 chromosomes (similar to S. pombe). Reference: Ohi H, Okazaki N, Uno S, Miura M, Hiramatsu R (1998) Chromosomal DNA patterns and gene stability of Pichia pastoris. Yeast 14(10):895-903.
We have clearly resolved four chromosomal bands from four Pichia pastoris (Komagataella pastoris) strains by using contour-clamped homogeneous electric field gel electrophoresis. The size of the P. pastoris chromosomal bands ranged from 1.7 Mb to 3.5 Mb, and total genome size was estimated to be 9.5 Mb to 9.8 Mb; however, chromosome-length polymorphisms existed among four strains.
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The PichiaPink system relies on selection of transformants using ADE2 complementation (i.e., by complementation of adenine auxotrophy) rather than antibiotic selection. The ADE2 gene encodes phosphoribosylaminoimidazole carboxylase, which catalyzes the sixth step in the de novo biosynthesis of purine nucleotides. Mutations in ADE2 lead to the accumulation of purine precursors in the vacuole, which causes the colony to be red in color. In addition, ade2 mutants are adenine auxotrophs that are unable to grow on medium lacking adenine and have a slow growth phenotype on rich medium.
The strains in the PichiaPink system are ade2 auxotrophs due to the full deletion of the ADE2 gene and part of its promoter. The PichiaPink expression vectors contain the ADE2 gene (under its own promoter) as the selection marker, with the high-copy vectors (pPink-HC and pPinkalpha-HC) containing a truncated ADE2 promoter compared to the full-length ADE2 promoter in the low-copy vector (pPink-LC). Transformation of the PichiaPink strains with the expression plasmids enable the strain to grow on medium lacking adenine (Ade dropout medium or minimal medium). Regardless of the host PichiaPink strain, both white and slightly pink colonies are obtained on the selection plates upon transformation with the high-copy PichiaPink vectors. The color of the colonies indirectly indicates the relative expression levels of the protein of interest as the color of the colony depends on the copy number of the plasmid, which in turn is determined by the promoter strengths of the markers. The pink colonies express very little ADE2 gene product, while the white colonies express higher amounts of the ADE2 gene product, suggesting that those colonies have more copies of the integrated construct. Strains transformed with the low-copy plasmid, pPink-LC, grow faster on medium lacking adenine, generating white colonies due to the stronger promoter on this vector. Since the promoter is stronger, less ADE2 expression is required to allow the strains to grow on medium lacking adenine. As a result, fewer copies of the ADE2 gene/expression construct are required in the strain.
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PichiaPink Yeast Expression System offers significant advantages compared to the original EasySelect Pichia system. Please see the advantages below:
- Both high and low copy enables optimization of toxic protein expression
- 8 secretion signal leader sequences
- 4 strains
- 3 protease-deficienct host strains
- Relies on adenine selection instead of an antibiotic resistance marker
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DESCRIPTION OF PROTEOLYTIC ACTIVITIES
Proteinase A is a vacuolar aspartyl protease capable of self-activation, as well as subsequent activation of additional vacuolar proteases, such as carboxypeptidase Y and proteinase B. Carobxypeptidase Y appears to be completely inactive prior to proteinase A-mediated proteolytic processing of the enzyme; proteinase B (encoded by the PrB gene of S. cerevisiae) reportedly is approximately 50% bioactive in its precursor form (i.e. the form that exists prior to proteinase A-mediated processing of the enzyme). Little is known about the proteolytic activities in Pichia pastoris. The following protease deficient Pichia pastoris strains have been made in an attempt to inactivate or delete the homologous proteolytic activities:
SMD 1168 Pep4 gene disrupted
SMD 1165 PrB gene disrupted
SMD 1163 Pep4/PrB gene disrupted
PichiaPink Strain 2 Pep4 gene disrupted
PichiaPink Strain 3 Prb1 gene disrupted
PichiaPink Strain 4 Prb1, Pep4 gene disrupted
The Pep4 deficient mutant theoretically reduces the protease activity of Proteinase A, Caboxypeptisae Y, and approximately one-half of Proteinase B activity. The proteinase B deficient strain only reduces the activity of proteinase B. Finally, the Pep4/PrB strain reduces or eliminates the proteolytic activity of all three of these enzymes, proteinase A, Carboxypeptidase Y and Proteinase B. These protease deficient strains when compared to wild-type Pichia strains have shown to be highly efficient expression systems for the production of proteolytically sensitive products.
The PRB1 deficient mutant is deficient in expression of proteinase B.
PREPARATION OF PROTEASE DEFICIENT STRAINS
The preferred method for preparing Pichia strains deficient in proteolytic activity, specific disruption of protease-encoding genes, was achieved by gene addition, gene replacement or a combination of additions and replacement referred to as "pop-in-pop-out" method. In gene replacement, the endogenous target gene is physically removed from the target locus, and replaced with a modified gene. This a accomplished by transforming the host with a linear fragment having ends which are homologous to the 5' and 3' ends of the target gene respectively. Gene addition involves adding the transforming DNA to the endogenous target gene. Depending on the manner in which the modified gene of the transforming DNA was altered, gene addition can result in the presence of either two non-functional copies of the target gene, or one functional and one non-functional copy of the target gene. Each of the two copies consists of a portion of the transforming DNA. If a functional copy of the target gene remains after gene addition, it can be removed by homologous recombination between the two copies of the target gene. The combination process of gene addition followed by homologous recombination constitutes the "Pop-in-pop-out" process.