Chaperone-mediated production of active homodimer human bone morphogenetic protein-2 in E. coli

Human bone morphogenetic protein 2 (hBMP-2) plays a leading role in the process of osteogenesis and is one of the key components of osteoplastic materials, ensuring their high osteoinduction. In order to obtain a homo-dimeric form hBMP-2 using the E. coli expression system, a number of problems associated with refolding in vitro and purification from monomer and oligomeric forms must be solved. The developed method for co-expression of the target protein with chaperone proteins makes it possible to obtain the biologically active homodimeric form of hBMP-2 in vivo. Purification with simple ion-exchange sor-bents without the use of denaturing reagents affecting the structure of the protein molecule provides a chro-matographic purity of the product of at least 97%. The expressed hBMP-2 was identified by Western blotting and the LC-ESI-TOF mass spectrometry confirmed its molecular weight of 26052.72 Da. Circular dichroism spec-troscopy showed that recombinant hBMP-2 has a native secondary structure.