Over the last few years, Pichia pastoris has been developed into a powerful expression system for a multitude of foreign genes. Here, we demonstrate that the P. pastoris expression system has similar power to the baculovirus expression system in high-level production of two G-protein-coupled receptors, the mouse 5HT(5A) 5-hydroxtryptamine receptor and the human beta(2)-adrenergic receptor. Different expression plasmids were constructed in which the cDNAs of the two receptors were cloned under the transcriptional control of the highly inducible promoter of the P. pastoris alcohol oxidase 1 (AOX1) gene. In three expression plasmids, the receptors were fused to the Saccharomyces cerevisiae alpha-factor prepropeptide and also to the c-myc tag or the FLAG tag to permit immunological detection of the receptors. After transformation into P. pastoris strains KM71 and SMD 1163, recombinant clones were selected and tested for the production of the 5HT(5A) receptor and the beta(2)-adrenergic receptor by radioligand binding using [N-methyl-H-3]lysergic acid diethylamide and [5,7-H-3](-)CGP-12177 respectively. The production level of the 5HT(5A) receptor was improved by a factor of three by fusion with the alpha-factor prepropeptide. Also, the higher gene dosage resulting from multiple insertions of the expression cassette led to an improvement in production by a factor of two for both receptors. The addition of the adrenergic antagonist alprenolol to the culture medium had a positive effect on the number of specific binding sites detectable in clones producing the beta(2)-adrenergic receptor. For the 5HT(5A) receptor the addition of yohimbine resulted in a similar but smaller effect. Binding assays revealed that approx. 25 pmol of beta(2)-adrenergic receptor and approx. 40 pmol of 5HT(5A) receptor per mg of membrane protein in crude membrane preparations were produced. The pharmacological profiles for the heterologously produced receptors, estimated by ligand-displacement analysis using certain adrenergic and serotoninergic agonists and antagonists, were comparable with those reported for the receptors expressed in mammalian systems. Immunoblot analysis of the 5HT(5A) receptor revealed an apparent molecular mass about 20 kDa higher than expected from the amino acid sequence. Here, the Kex2 endopeptidase failed to process the alpha-factor leader correctly. Blocking glycosylation in vivo by tunicamycin or in vitro deglycosylation of membranes by endoglycosidase H resulted in correct processing. In contrast, the beta(2)-adrenergic receptor fusion to the alpha-factor leader was correctly processed by the internal Kex2 endopeptidase. The Kex2-processed beta(2)-adrenergic receptor was not glycosylated. In conclusion, the high-level production of the two receptors in P. pastoris will allow their purification in quantities sufficient for subsequent biophysical and structural studies.
