Abstract: To improve foreign protein production in E. coli, effects of lactose and IPTG were compared on production of carbohydrate-binding module (CBM2) by employing pET20b as expression vector and BL21(DE3) E.coli as host cell. OD₆₀₀ value of cells incubated in ZYM-5052 media with lactose was 4.4-fold of those incubated in LB media with IPTG. After SDS-PAGE analysis, 200 μL cells incubated with ZYM-5052-lactose produced 82.3 μg CBM2, consisting 55.3% of the total protein. 200 μL cells incubated with LB-IPTG produced 16.6 μg CBM2, consisting 25.7% of the total protein. SDS-PAGE of cells with equivalent OD₆₀₀ value showed that CBM2 increased along with time in each cell incubated in ZYM-5052-lactose. Thereby, high-density self-induction method increased both cell density and protein production in each ccell. High-density self-induction method was also used to express glucanase, and the results showed that OD₆₀₀ value and glucanase activity of cells incubated with ZYM-5052-lactose were 2.3-fold and 4.5-fold of those incubated with LB-IPTG. The study provided a relative simple and more general high-density self-induction method to increase foreign protein production.