An efficient system for production of recombinant urokinase-type plasminogen activator

A system was developed to produce recombinant urokinase-type plasminogen activator in Escherichia coli. The urokinase-type plasminogen activator was produced with a 6 x His-tag at the C-terminus which was shown to have the same activity, after refolding, as the wild-type protein. Purification of the recombinant protein to homogeneity (95%) was possible by one-step affinity chromatography under denaturing conditions. As a result, proteolysis by bacterial proteases during purification was avoided. A higher refolding efficiency (40%) and a higher total recovery yield (25%) of the recombinant protein were obtained by this method.