[Cloning, expression and purification of the chicken growth and differentiation factor-8]

Growth and Differentiation Factor-8(GDF-8) is a new member of TGF-beta super-family. It has been shown that GDF-8 is specifically expressed in skeleton muscle in mouse and its function is to inhibit the growth of muscle cell, so it is named as Myostatin. Here, we amplified 3'half-length GDF-8 cDNA from chicken skeleton muscle by RT-PCR, and cloned it into the prokaryotic expression vector pTrcHisB, which was then transformed into E. coli Top10 cells. The recombinant 6 x His-GDF-8 fusion protein expressed in the Top10 cells was purified by Ni(+)-Affinity Chromatography for future study.