PURPOSE: To provide a polypeptide having antitumor activity and containing an amino acid sequence wherein the amino acid residue at a specific site on the whole amino acid sequence of a mature human tumor necrosis factor (TNF) is substituted which other amino acid residue.
CONSTITUTION: The objective polypeptide has an amino acid sequence of formu la provided that the 67th and the 99th amino acids from the N-terminal are substituted with amino acids other than Cys (preferably Ser or Tyr) and/or the 70th and 71st amino acids are substituted with His, Thr, Tyr, Tyr-His, His-Tyr, Tyr-Thr or Thr-Tyr (especially His, Tyr or Tyr-His). The polypeptide can be produced by preparing human TNF-producing recombinant plasmid (pHTR91) from human alveolar macrophage, constructing a manifestation plasmid (pHTP390, pHTP391) for the production of the objective polypeptide using the above recombinant plasmid, introducing the plasmid into a host and culturing the resultant transformation.
FURUYA TAIJI
NOTAKE MITSUE
YAMAGISHI JUNICHI
