Iram Gull, Muhammad Shahbaz Aslam and Muhammad Amin Athar
Institute of Biochemistry and Biotechnology, University of the Punjab, Lahore, Pakistan
Use of recombinant cytokines for therapeutic purposes has side effects due to the pleiotropic effect. It diminishes the efficacy of recombinant cytokines. Use of therapeutics in the form of pro-drug can eliminate the chances of non-specific binding and subsequent adverse effects. This approach ultimately improves the drug efficacy and increases the trust of consumer on therapeutic cytokines for safe use. In the present study, the gene of interferon alpha 2b has been engineered by fusion with gene of latency associated protein (LAP) of human TGFβ using HCV NS3 protease cleavage site as linker for conditional activation of resultant chimeric protein only in HCV infected cells by positive use of hepatitis C virus NS3 protease activity.
Keywords: Engineering, Cytokine, Gene, Conditional activation.