IMPROVEMENT OF T-PA PROPERTIES BY MEANS OF SITE DIRECTED MUTAGENESIS

The clinical relevance of tissue-plasminogen-activator (t-PA) as a potent thrombolytic agent has recently been established. It has however been recognized that t-PA does not fulfill all conditions required for an ideal thrombolytic pharmaceutical agent; for example, its physiological stability and its short half life in vivo necessitate the use of very large clinical doses. We have therefore attempted to develop novel mutant t-PA proteins with improved properties by creating mutants by site-directed mutagenesis in M13 bacteriophage. Seventeen mutants were designed, cloned, and expressed in CHO cells. Modifications were of three types: alterations to glycosylation sites, truncations of the N- or C-termini, and amino acids changes at the cleavage site utilized to generate the two chain form of t-PA. The mutant proteins were analyzed in vitro for specific activity, fibrin dependence of the plasminogen activation, fibrin affinity, and susceptibility to inhibition by PAI.In brief, the results are: 1) some unglycosylated and partially glycosylated molecules obtained by mutagenesis are characterized by several-fold higher specific activity than wild type t-PA; 2) truncation at the C-terminus by three amino acids yields a molecule with increased fibrin specificity; 3) mutations at the cleavage site lead zo a decreased inhibition by PAI; and 4) recombinants of these genes have been constructed and the proteins were shown to possess multiple improved properties. The use of site directed mutagenesis has proved to be a powerful instrument to modulate the biological properties of t-PA.