Expression of Recombinant Epidermal Growth Factor in E. coli

Epidermal growth factor(EGF) known as a urgastrone is a powerful mitogen with a wide variety of possibilities for medical usages. A mature EGF coding region was isolated from human prepro-EGF sequence by a conventional PCR and cloned into pQE vector in which the gene product was supposed to be expressed with 6$\times$His tag for the subsequent purification. The recombinant mature EGF was expressed in M15[Rep4], an Escherichia coli host strain, in amount of 30-40% of total proteins pressent in E. coli extract by the addition of isopropylthio-$\beta$-galactopyranoside (IPTG). The recombinant EGF purified using a Ni2+-NTA affinity colume chromatography was active in its ability to induce phosphorylation on tyrosine residues of several substrate proteins when murine NH3T3 and human MRC-5 fibroblast cells were stimulated with it. This work may provide the basic technology and information for the production of recombinant EGF.