Mutations Y30A and Y196A (amino acid numbering corresponds to prototoxin without the 13 amino acids N-terminal peptide sequence) were introduced into GSK2118436 the gene encoding epsilon prototoxin (P-Etx) using the QuickChange Lightning Site-Directed Mutagenesis Kit (Agilent Technologies, Inc. Santa Clara, US) according to the manufacturer’s instructions. Recombinant P-Etx with Y30A and Y196A mutations is termed Y30A-Y196A. Recombinant Y30A-Y196A was expressed, purified and its thermostability assessed as described previously

[14]. Purified recombinant Etx prototoxin was activated with trypsin, TPCK treated from bovine pancreas (Sigma-Aldrich Company Ltd., Gillingham, UK) for 1 h at room temperature and removal of

the C-terminal peptide sequence was assessed by SDS-PAGE as described previously [14]. MDCK.2 cells Selleckchem Gefitinib (ATCC-LGC Standards, Teddington, UK) and ACHN cells (ECACC, Salisbury, UK) were routinely cultured in Eagle’s Minimum Essential Medium (EMEM; ATCC-LGC Standards, Teddington, UK) supplemented with 10% Foetal Bovine Serum Gold (PAA, Pasching, Austria) at 37 °C in a humidified atmosphere of 95% air/5% CO2. The culture medium was replaced every 2–3 days. Cells were routinely detached by incubation in trypsin/EDTA and split as appropriate (typically 1:6 dilutions). The cytotoxic activity of trypsin-activated toxin toward MDCK.2 and ACHN cells was determined by measuring the amount of lactate dehydrogenase (LDH) released from the cytosol of lysed cells into the cell culture medium using the CytoTox 96 nonradioactive cytotoxicity assay kit (Promega UK, Southampton, UK) as described previously [14]. The toxin dose required to kill 50% of the cell monolayer (CT50) was determined by nonlinear regression analysis using GraphPad

Prism 6 software (GraphPad Software, La Jolla, USA). All experiments were performed in triplicate with three technical replicates each. To measure binding of prototoxin to MDCK.2 and ACHN cells the On-Cell Western assay was used as described previously Mephenoxalone [14]. Bound prototoxin was detected with mouse anti-Etx monoclonal Bio355 antibody (Bio-X Diagnostics S.P.R.L, Belgium) and IRDye 800CW goat anti-mouse IgG (H + L) antibody (LI-COR Biosciences, Lincoln, USA) at 1:500 dilution each. To quantify the amount of fluorescent signal, plates were imaged at 800 nm using the Odyssey CLx infrared imaging system (LI-COR Biosciences, Lincoln, USA). The binding activity of the mutant prototoxin was expressed as the percentage of fluorescence intensity relative to wild type prototoxin. To compare the means of the On-Cell Western assay data, Two-Way ANOVA analysis followed by Dunnett’s multiple comparisons test was carried out using the GraphPad Prism 6 software (GraphPad Software, La Jolla).