CYSTEINE-DEPLETED MUTEINS OF INTERFERON-BETA, THEIR PREPARATION, FORMULATIONS CONTAINING THEM, AND STRUCTURAL GENES, VECTORS AND ORGANISMS, AND THEIR PRODUCTION, SUITABLE FOR USE IN THE PREPARATION OF SAID MUTEINS

摘要

The invention provides muteins of biologically active proteins such as IFN- beta and IL-2 in which cysteine residues that are not essential to biological activity have been deleted or replaced with other amino acids to eliminate sites for intermolecular crosslinking or incorrect intramolecular disulfide bridge formation. These muteins may be made via bacterial expression of mutant genes that encode the muteins and have been synthesized from the genes for the parent proteins by oligonucleotide-directed mutagenesis.