Comparison of the functional activities of two different preparations of human recombinant tumor necrosis factor alpha.

The role of tumor necrosis factor (TNF-alpha) in physiological and pathological reactions has resulted in a progressive increase of expensive TNF-alpha consumption for laboratory and clinical purposes. Following this trend, the first chemical synthesis of the gene for rHuTNF-alpha gene in Poland and its subsequent successful expression in E. coli was recently reported. In the present paper, we verify the in vitro biological activities of this TNF-alpha preparation (CMMS/TNF-alpha) in comparison with a commercially available preparation of TNF-alpha. We demonstrate that our TNF-alpha possesses strong cytotoxic activity against WEHI 164 (clone 13) cells, binds the p55 and p75 TNF receptors on cell lines, induces intercellular adhesion molecule-1 (ICAM-1) expression, and interleukin-6 (IL-6) and granulocyte-macrophage colony-stimulating factor (GM-CSF) release from human umbilical vein endothelial cells (HUVEC). We demonstrate its usefulness for further investigations as an effective reagent for in vitro assays.