The influence of Escherichia coli cultivation temperature on interferon alpha 2a expression (IFN-α2a)

Background The Hormone Group of IPEN develops researches on recombinant pituitary hormones produced in Escherichia coli at laboratory scale, including human growth hormone (hGH) and prolactin (hPRL). The best results were obtained using the lPL promoter and the signal peptide DsbA, and so the protein of interest is secreted into the bacterial periplasmic space, in its authentic form without an initial methionine [1,2]. The expression, under control of the lPL promoter, regulated by the thermosensitive repressor, is used for large scale production in E. coli. Thermal induction presents a great advantage over chemical inducers like IPTG or nalidixic acid, that are expensive and dangerous for manipulators and environment, but it presents the disadvantage that proteins particularly thermolabile like hPRL could suffer proteolysis and aggregation, influencing negatively the production. Considering the limitations on the use of IPTG and the periplasmic secretion, successfully obtained with our hGH expression vector using lPL promoter and W3110 strain, we decided to use this system for IFN-a2a production. The goal of this work was the construction of the IFN-a2a vector, obtaining an the IFN-a2a periplasmic expression.