Yeast strains for the production of mature heterologous proteins, especially hirudin

摘要

The present invention relates to an improved system for producing mature heterologous proteins, and especially hirudin, by means of yeasts comprising an expression vector containing a sequence coding for the heterologous protein. This improvement is characterized by amplification of the KEX2 gene of yeast, coding for the endoprotease yscF. The amplification is carried out either by integration of one or more copies of all or part of the KEX2 gene in the yeast genome, or by insertion of one or more copies of all or part of the KEX2 gene into the vector for expression of the heterologous protein.