GENE TECHNOLOGY-BASED ANTIMETABOLITE DESIGN - THE USE OF AN IN-VITRO PROTEIN EXPRESSION SYSTEM TO FACILITATE ANTIMETABOLITE DESIGN FOR VIRALLY-INDUCED HUMAN-DISEASES AND MALIGNANT CONDITIONS

A precondition for the chemotherapeutic treatment of a variety of vira lly-induced human diseases and malignant conditions is a highly select ive interaction of the drug molecule to be used with it's biological t arget. To ensure the development of novel, effective drugs, it is esse ntial that the biological target is well characterised with regard to it's structure and activity. Such characterisation relies upon adequat e amounts of pure target being available. One of the most important en zymatic importers for antimetabolities is the enzyme thymidine kinase. In this article an in vitro protein expression system is described wh ich facilitates the production of milligram amounts of pure and biolog ically active thymidine kinase, from a number of important biological sources. Results have shown that the in vitro produced enzyme has the exact biochemical properties of the in vivo enzyme. Thus the in vitro protein expression system is an ideal vehicle to facilitate an in dept h investigation of the enzyme's biological properties.