Recombinant production of chymase

摘要

The instant invention is directed to recombinant production of functionally active chymase. "Functionally active" as used herein refers to the ability to exhibit one or more functional activities of a full-length wild-type chymase protein. In a preferred aspect, a proteolytically inactive chymase fusion protein comprising a functionally active portion of a non-chymase protein joined to the amino-terminus of the chymase protein is produced, which, upon cleavage away of the non-chymase fusion protein portion, becomes proteolytically active. A refolding procedure for increasing yields of proteolytically active recombinant chymase is provided. The invention is further directed to use of the recombinant chymase thus produced for preparing chymase-specific antibodies.