Production of hGM-CSF by transformed rice cell suspension culture

Recombinant human GM -CSF was expressed and secreted from transgenic rice cell suspension cultures in its biologically active form. This was accomplished by transforming rice callus tissues with an expression vector, pMYN44. containing the hGM -CSF cDNA. Regulated expression and secretion of hGM -CSF from this vector achieved using the promoter, signal peptide, and terminator from a rice alfa-amylase gene Amy3D. The Amy3D gene is expressed in response to sugar deprivation. The recombinant hGM -CSF was expressed from the transgenic rice cell culture on the sugar-free medium as a yield of about 110 mg/L in the culture filtrate, which was determined by ELISA. Biological activity of hGM-CSF was confirmed by measuring the proliferation of the hGM -CSF dependent TF -1 cells.(This work was supported by a grant from the NRL program of the Korean Ministry of Science and Technology. Shin, Y.- J.. Lee. J.-H and Kwon, T.-H. have been supported by BK21 program from the Korean Ministry of Education)