Expression of two human growth hormone genes in monkey cells infected by simian virus 40 recombinants.

We have constructed simian virus 40 recombinants carrying two different human growth hormone (hGH) genes. Monkey kidney cells infected with these recombinants synthesize, process, and secrete hGH. The product of gene 1, which has coding sequences identical to those of a cloned hGH complementary DNA, is indistinguishable from pituitary hGH by several criteria. The product of gene 2, which is predicted to encode a variant protein, is less immunoreactive than pituitary hGH but binds efficiently to hGH cell surface receptors. These results show that gene 2 has the potential to be expressed into a previously unidentified form of hGH. They also demonstrate that it is possible to produce a mature hormone by gene transfer in eukaryotic cells and indicate the utility of the simian virus 40-monkey cell system for producing and characterizing secreted animal cell proteins.