A new system for TNF-α quantification in human blood samples

Abstract  Full-length human TNF-α and its truncated derivative in which 18 N-terminal amino acid residues were replaced with T7-tag were obtained as inclusion bodies as a result of expression of artificial genes in E. coli cells. The purification and refolding procedures for the recombinant proteins were developed, and biological activity of the resultant proteins was demonstrated. Polyclonal antibodies against TNF-α were obtained. A sandwich ELISA test system for TNF-α quantification (sensitivity, 100 pg/mL) was constructed. It was shown that this system is applicable for detecting TNF-α elevation in human blood.