Expression of an Interferon-α Gene Variant in E. coli Using Tandemly Repeated Synthetic Ribosomal Binding Sites

Abstract

A human interferon-α₂ gene variant was expressed in Escherichia coli under the control of the tryptophan operon promoter and of a series of synthetic partially overlapping ribosomal binding sites, which control initiation of translation. Variation in the distance between the start codon and such a set of ribosomal binding sites affected the level of interferon expression much less than previously described for single ribosomal binding sites.