Construction and function of two Cys146-mutants with high activity, derived from recombinant human soluble B lymphocyte stimulator.

B lymphocyte stimulator (BLyS) is a novel member of tumor necrosis factor (TNF) ligand family that is important in B cell maturation and survival. Previous studies were almost related to the function or mechanism of its wild type. Here, we constructed two site-directed mutants of the recombinant human soluble BLyS, the BY-A and BY-V, and found that BY-V ranked the highest whenever in the process of promoting proliferation of B lymphocytes in vitro or stimulating total serum IgG and IgM secretion in vivo. Besides, assays for the biological responses of human leukemic cell lines to BLyS, BY-A and BY-V demonstrated that they could suppress the proliferation of Raji cells but promote the growth of THP-1. The discovery of BY-V with high activity will help come to a conclusion that the mutation of Cys146 to Val146 might improve the biological activity of BLyS.