Purification, Cloning, and Expression of Ciliary Neurotrophic Factor (CNTF)

Abstract

Ciliary neurotrophic factor (CNTF) is one of a small number of proteins with neurotrophic activities distinct from nerve growth factor (NGF). CNTF has now been purified and cloned and the primary structure of CNTF from rabbit sciatic nerve has been determined. Biologically active CNTF has been transiently expressed from a rabbit complementary DNA clone. CNTF is a neural effector without significant sequence homologies to any previously reported protein.