The co-expression of the arg U gene in a double-vector expression system of recombi-nant Escherichia coli BL22(DE3)[pET-IEN2a+pAC-argU] significantly enhanced the production level of reconminant human interferon -$alpha$2a(rhIFN-$alpha$2a) in high cell density cultures, compared to a recombinant E. coli culture containing only the single expression vector, pET-IEN2a. The dry cell mass concentration increased to almost 100 g/L, and more than 4 g/L of rhIFN-$alpha$2a was accumu-lated in the culture broth. Evidently, the synthesis of rhIFN-$alpha$2a was strongly dependent on the pre-induction growtih rate and more efficient at a higher specific growth rate. The additional sup-ply of tRN $A^{Arg(AGG/AGA)}$ enhanced the expression level of the rhIFN-$alpha$2a gene in the early stage of the post-induction phase, yet thereafter the specific production rate of rhIFN-$alpha$2a rapidly de-creased due to severe segregational instability of plasmid vector pET-IEN2a. It would appear that the plasmid instability with only occurred to pET-IEN2a in the double vector system, was re-lated to the effect of translational stress due to the over expression of rhIFN-$alpha$2a.