Recombinant human vascular endothelial growth factor (rhVEGF) has important applications in therapeutic angiogenesis and inhibition of VEGF-mediated pathological angiogenesis. Previous studies have shown that rhVEGF can be produced in several expression systems, including Escherichia coli, yeasts, insect cells and mammalian cells. However, little is known regarding the effective production of this protein in organs of live organisms. Here, we report for the first time the expression and characterization of rhVEGF165 in the middle silk gland (MSG) of the transgenic silkworm line S1-V165. Our results confirmed that (1) rhVEGF165 was highly expressed in MSG cells and was secreted into the cocoon of S1-V165; (2) the dimeric form of rhVEGF165 could be easily dissolved from S1-V165 cocoons using an alkaline solution; (3) rhVEGF165 extracted from S1-V165 cocoons exhibited slightly better cell proliferative activity than the hVEGF165 standard in cultured human umbilical vein endothelial cells. This study provides an alternative strategy for the production of bioactive rhVEGF165 using the MSG of transgenic silkworms.

中文翻译：

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重组人VEGF165在转基因蚕中部丝腺中的表达和鉴定。

重组人血管内皮生长因子（rhVEGF）在治疗性血管生成和抑制VEGF介导的病理性血管生成中具有重要的应用。先前的研究表明，rhVEGF可以在几种表达系统中产生，包括大肠杆菌，酵母，昆虫细胞和哺乳动物细胞。然而，关于这种蛋白在活生物体器官中的有效产生知之甚少。在这里，我们首次报道了转基因家蚕S1-V165的中间丝腺（MSG）中rhVEGF165的表达和特征。我们的结果证实：（1）rhVEGF165在MSG细胞中高表达，并分泌到S1-V165的茧中。（2）使用碱性溶液可以很容易地从S1-V165茧中溶解出rhVEGF165的二聚体形式。（3）在培养的人脐静脉内皮细胞中，从S1-V165茧中提取的rhVEGF165显示出比hVEGF165标准品更好的细胞增殖活性。这项研究提供了使用转基因蚕MSG生产生物活性rhVEGF165的替代策略。