Affinity purification of tumor necrosis factor-α expressed in raji cells by produced scFv antibody coupled CNBr-activated sepharose

PURPOSE: Recombinant tumor necrosis factor-alpha (TNF-α) has been utilized as an antineoplastic agent for the treatment of patients with melanoma and sarcoma. It targets tumor cell antigens by impressing tumor-associated vessels. Protein purification with affinity chromatography has been widely used in the downstream processing of pharmaceutical-grade proteins.

METHODS: In this study, we examined the potential of our produced anti-TNF-α scFv fragments for purification of TNF-α produced by Raji cells. The Raji cells were induced by lipopolysaccharides (LPS) to express TNF-α. Western blotting and Fluorescence-activated cell sorting (FACS) flow cytometry analyses were used to evaluate the TNF-α expression. The anti-TNF-α scFv selected from antibody phage display library was coupled to CNBr-activated sepharose 4B beads used for affinity purification of expressed TNF-α and the purity of the protein was assessed by SDS-PAGE.

RESULTS: Western blot and FACS flow cytometry analyses showed the successful expression of TNF-α with Raji cells. SDS-PAGE analysis showed the performance of scFv for purification of TNF-α protein with purity over 95%.

CONCLUSION: These findings confirm not only the potential of the produced scFv antibody fragments but also this highly pure recombinant TNF-α protein can be applied for various in vitro and in vivo applications.