Human insulin-like growth factor 1 (hIGF-1) is one kind of growth factor with clinical significance in medicine. The expression of TrxA-hIGF-1 fusion protein was rationally compared in three different Escherichia call hosts (BL21 (DE3), Rosetta (DE3) and Rosetta-gami (DE3)) with the transformation of plasmid pET32-hIGF-1. The highest productivity of soluble hIGF-1 fusion protein was achieved in E. coli Rosetta-gami (DE3). Moreover, the effects of different expression conditions in this E. coli Rosetta-gami (DE3)/pET32-hIGF-1 host were systematically investigated to improve the expression level of the fusion protein. Under the optimized conditions, a high percent of the target fusion protein (96%) was expressed as soluble form with the volumetric production of soluble fusion protein reaching up to 2.06 g/L. After cell disruption, the soluble fusion protein was separated effectively by affinity chromatography and cleaved by enterokinase, with the concentration of mature hIGF-1 reaching up to 0.42 g/L in the mixture. The present work should be useful for the enhanced production of soluble protein with multiple disulfide bonds in E. coli. (C) 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.