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Updated: Mar 1, 2026
High Yield Expression of Recombinant Human Proteins with the Transient Transfection of HEK293 Cells in Suspension
Published on: December 28, 2015
Purification and characterization of a bioactive alpha-fetoprotein produced by HEK-293 cells
Bo Lin1, Guoqing Peng1, Haipeng Feng1
1Hainan Provincial Key Laboratory of Carcinogenesis and Intervention, Hainan Medical College, Haikou 571199, Hainan Province, PR China; Key Laboratory of Molecular Biology, Hainan Medical College, Haikou 571199, PR China.
Abstract:
Alpha-fetoprotein (AFP) is a biomarker that is used to diagnose hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) and can promote malignancy in HCC. AFP is an important target in the treatment of liver cancer. To obtain enough AFP to screen for AFP inhibitors, we expressed and purified AFP in HEK-293 cells. In the present study, we produced AFP in the cells and harvested highly pure rAFP (or recombinant expression AFP in HEK-293 cells). We also analysed the bioactivity of rAFP and found that rAFP promoted growth of the human HCC cells, antagonize paclitaxel inhibition of HCC cell proliferation, suppress expression of active caspase-3, and promote expression of Ras and survivin. This study provides a method to produce significant amounts of AFP for use in biochemical assays and functional studies and to screen AFP inhibitors for use in HCC therapy.
