Production of a soluble and secreted antigenic fragment of HBsAg in yeast.

We have produced a fragment of hepatitis B surface antigen (HBsAg) corresponding to amino acids 1-60 as a fusion protein with the alpha mating factor of yeast. The product is secreted from yeast as a soluble monomer that expresses HBsAg antigenicity. Unlike other heterologous fusion proteins, it is not processed by the Lys-Arg endoprotease, possibly due to a proline in the linker between the two coding sequences. The resulting soluble fragment will enable us to map the immunodominant sites of HBsAg recognized by T cells and to identify additional factors contributing to vaccine potency.