Construction of novel tumor necrosis factor-alpha mutants with reduced toxicity and higher cytotoxicity on human tumor cells

Two tumor necrosis factor-( mutants MT1 (32Trp157Phe) and MT2 (2Lys30Ser- 32Trp157Phe) were constructed by site-directed mutagenesis. These mutants were soluble and over-expressed in E. coli. The purity of purified mutants was above 95% by serial chromatography. The results of Western blot indicated that these mutants could be cross-reactive with monoclonal antibody against native hTNF-α. Compared to parent hTNF-α, the cytotoxicity of these mutants on murine fibrosarcoma L929 cell lines reduced 4-5 orders of magnitude but was equivalent to that of native hTNF-α on human tumor cell lines. The LD50 of mutant MT1 was reduced to 0.34% of wild type and the dose of MT2 that resulted in 30% death of mice reduced to less than 1/700 that of parent hTNF-α.