NEW HUMAN PROTEIN AND GENE CODING FOR THE SAME

摘要

PURPOSE:To obtain a new chondromodulin-I protein having a specific molecular weight, growth activities of a chondrocyte, promoting activities of the differentiation function thereof and suppressing activities in growing a vascular endothelial cell and useful for treating fracture, various chondropathies, cancer., etc. CONSTITUTION:This new human chondromodulin-I protein is obtained by screening a genomic library derived from a human using a probe composed of a part of a gene coding for a bovine chondromodulin, sorting a positive clone, recovering a DNA from the resultant clone, treating the DNA with a restriction enzyme, then joining the prepared DNA fragment to a suitable vector, providing an expression vector containing the DNA of coding for a human chondromodulin, then transducing the obtained expression vector into a host such as an animal cell, transforming the host and subsequently culturing the resultant transformant. The prepared human chondromodulin-I protein has about 26 kdaltons molecular weight measured by an SDS-polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis and is capable of growing a chondrocyte alone or in the coexistence of a fibroblast growth factor, promoting the differentiation function of the chondrocyte and suppressing the growth of a vascular endothelial cell.