Tumor necrosis factor α (TNFα) is a pyrogen cytokine released from immune cells in the acute phase of inflammation and infection. TNF-alpha shows approximately 30% homology with TNF-beta. TNF-alpha plays an important role in the regulation of immune cells. TNF-alpha has many biological activities, including a cytotoxic effect on various tumor cells, causes inflammation, cellular proliferation and plays a critical role in mediating resistance to bacterial infections. Human and murine TNF-alpha show approximately 79% homology and human TNF-alpha is active on murine cells with a slightly reduced specific activity.
It is a central cytokine in viral diseases and is associated with a number of chronic inflammatory and autoimmune diseases. Most of the top antibody block busters are Anti-Tumor necrosis Factor alpha inhibitor such as Adalimumab (HUMIRA) with around 20$ Billion sales apart from other Anti-TNF alpha therapeutic Antibody. These Antibody and their biosimilar are characterized by their critical quality attributes. One such critical quality attribute of such a biologics is neutralization of TNF alpha on fibroblast cell line.
Adalimumab specifically binds to soluble and transmembrane TNF-α and neutralizes its biological function by blocking its interaction with the p55 and p75 cell surface TNF-α receptors. Which induces antibody-dependent cell-mediated cytotoxicity, complement-dependent cytotoxicity, antibody mediated reverse signaling, and induction of regulatory macrophages.
Commonly, TNF alpha is produced as a Recombinant Protein as a target for assessment of its inhibitor. Recombinant protein is engineered to be produced as a tagged protein with commonly 6X His tag, which makes the process easy. But for functional assessment target is generally considered without a Tag or any extra amino acid. Biological researcher generally validates their bioactivity assay on tag-free TNF alpha for developing biosimilar clones.
GeNext Genomics has highly pure TNF alpha with both Tagged and Tag-Free format for Anti-TNF alpha Biologics assessment.
Also Read : Biological Activities of Transmembrane TNF-α as a Ligand