Production of human leptin in Bacillus subtilis

Human leptin is a 16 kDa (146 amino acids) protein secreted from adipocytes and influences body weight homeostasis. In this report, active human leptin was successfully produced in the culture medium of Bacillus subtilis. After simple purification steps consisting of ammonium sulfate precipitation and anion-exchange column chromatography, 2.3 mg of leptin with a purity of greater than 95% was obtained from the 0.5 L culture with the recovery yield of 54.9%. The purified leptin showed the correct folding structure with one disulfide bond.