酵母系统表达人表皮生长因子研究进展

Human epidermal growth factor (hEGF) is a kind of protein isolated from the human body. It can stimulate the cell growth and thus has a wide range of clinical applications. The use of genetic engineering to produce hEGF has great economic prospects due to its limited natural source and high cost of chemical synthesis. Yeast expression system, as a typical eukaryotic expression system, can perform post-translational modifications, such as glycosylation, disulfide bond formation, etc., and can effectively secrete the proteins outside of the cell so that the recombinant protein can be separated from the extracellular medium easily. Therefore, yeast is especially favored in the research of producing recombinant hEGF. This article reviews the progress of producing hEGF in various yeast expression systems, including Saccharomyces cerevisiae, Pichia pastoris, Yarrowia lipolytica, etc., and on this base, their pros and cons were compared. The future prospects of using yeast expression to produce hEGF are discussed in light of the current progress, challenges, and trends in this field. Guidelines for future studies are finally proposed.