Growth and Differentiation Factor-8(GDF-8) is a new member of TGF-β super-family.It has been shown that GDF-8 is specifically expressed in skeleton muscle in mouse and its function is to inhibit the growth of muscle cell,so it is named as Myostatin.Here,we amplified 3′half-length GDF-8 cDNA from chicken skeleton muscle by RT-PCR,and cloned it into the prokaryotic expression vector pTrcHisB,which was then transformed into E.coli Top10 cells.The recombinant 6×His-GDF-8 fusion protein expressed in the Top10 cells was purified by Ni+-Affinity Chromatography for future study.
