design and expression of recombinant her-2 antigen as a marker for detection of breast cancer

objective: the incidence of breast cancer is approximately one million which makes this cancer one of the most common among women worldwide. breast cancer comprises 7% of the total death rate caused by cancers. several strategies that use tumor-associated antigen (taa) vaccination and early detection of breast cancer are clinically being developed. breast cancer is caused by increased over expression of certain genes. her-2 is a tyrosine kinase receptor in the epidermal growth factor family. the role of her-2 in breast cancer has been extensively studied. her-2 is found in 25%-30% of breast cancer patients. herceptin, a human antibody, is used as a therapeutic target for her-2. the purpose of this study is to produce recombinant protein her-2 for early detection of breast cancer cells. methods: we used specific primers to amplify the her-2 gene. the amplified gene was cloned into pet28a as an expression vector. cloning was confirmed by restriction analysis and sequencing. expression was induced using iptg and the recombinant protein was analyzed by sds-page. results: cloning of the her-2 gene was confirmed by enzyme digestion and sequencing. the gene was expressed in e.coli bl21 de3. the pet-28a vector which contained the her-2 gene showed a high level of expression. the recombinant protein was confirmed by western blot analysis. conclusions: a portion of the her-2 gene was expressed as a recombinant in e.coli. this could be a good diagnostic test for breast cancer.