[an error occurred while processing this directive]

HEREDITAS ›› 2005, Vol. 27 ›› Issue (4): 557-560.

• 研究报告 • Previous Articles     Next Articles

Eukaryotic Expression and Tumor-targeting modification of Human Mutated-IL-18 Fusion Gene

LÜ Jian-Xin, PENG Ying, MENG Zhe-Feng   

  1. Institute of Cellular and Molecular Medicine, Wenzhou Medical College, Wenzhou 325035, China
  • Received:2004-03-08 Revised:2005-04-10 Online:2005-08-10 Published:2005-08-10

Abstract: Interleukin-18 (IL-18) is a proinflammatory cytokinin. This protein has a role in regulating immune responses and exhibits significant anti- tumor activities. Epidermal growth factor (EGF) is an important growth factor that plays a central role in the regulation of cell cycle and differentiation. It was proposed that a targeted delivery of IL-18 by generation of IL-18-EGF fusion protein might decrease adverse effects and result in enhancing cytotoxic and antitumor activities. In the present study, a fusion protein, consisting of EGFR binding domain fused to human IL18 mature peptide via a linker peptide of (Gly4ser) 3, was constructed and expressed in the insect cell line Sf9 using Bac-to-Bac baculovirus expression system. We showed that the purified recombinant fusion protein induced similar levels of IFN-γto that of native IL-18 protein in human PBMC in the presence of ConA. Furthermore, EGF Receptor competitive test in human epithelial cancer A431 cell line showed that EGF- IL18 fusion protein can specifically bind with EGFR by competing with native EGF protein. The results suggested that EGF-IL18 fusion protein could specifically be targeted on tumor cells. The work may provide a new insight into the cytokinin for the tumor treatment.

CLC Number: