Targeting recombinant proteins at highly extracellular production in the culture medium of Escherichia coli presents a significant advantage over cytoplasmic or periplasmic expression. In this work, a recombinant protein between ZZ protein and alkaline phosphatase (rZZ-AP) was constructed. Because rZZ-AP has the IgG-binding capacity and enzymatic activity, it can serve as an immunoreagent in immunoassays. However, only a very small portion of rZZ-AP is generally secreted into the aqueous medium under conventional cultivation procedure. Hence, we emphasized on the optimization of the culture procedures and attempted to dramatically enhance the yield of extracellular rZZ-AP from E. coli HB101 host cells by adding sucrose, glycine, and Triton X-100 in the culture medium. Results showed that the extracellular production of rZZ-AP in the culture medium containing 5% sucrose, 1% glycine, and 1% Triton X-100 was 18.6 mg/l, which was 18.6-fold higher than that without the three chemicals. And the beta-galactosidase activity test showed that the increased extracellular rZZ-AP was not due to cell lysis. Further analysis suggested a significant interaction effect among the three chemicals for the enhancement of extracellular production. Ultrastructural analysis indicated that the enhancement may be due to the influence of sucrose, glycine, and Triton X-100 on the periplasmic osmolality, permeability, or integrity of the cell wall, respectively. This proposed approach presents a simple strategy to enhance the extracellular secretion of recombinant proteins in the E. coli system at the process of cell cultivation. (C) 2016 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.