Enhancing activity of N-glycosylation for constitutive proteins secretions in non-polarized cells

Several fusion proteins of mouse Interleukins (mILs) and the enhanced green fluorescent protein (EGFP) were expressed in fibroblast and epithelial cells. Among these proteins, the mIL-31 derivative was the most efficiently secreted into the medium in a N-glycosylation-dependent manner. From the analysis of deletion mutants, the minimal structure for constitutive secretions consisted of a signal peptide and N-glycosylation. Introduction of the signal sequence from mIL-31 to human p53 protein failed to secrete the products, but further addition of the N-glycosylation site resulted in constitutive secretion of biologically active p53 protein into the medium in the N-glycosylated form. In this report, we showed the importance of N-glycosylation for constitutive protein secretions, especially using non-polarized cells.