A new method of synthesizing biopolymeric affinity ligands.

(1) A new concept for producing soluble polymeric affinity ligands is proposed and exemplified. By solid-phase synthesis, an insoluble hydrophilic polymer is converted into an affinity gel. The gel is hydrolytically degraded to water-soluble affinity polymeric ligands which are recovered and purified. (2) A water-soluble biopolymeric metal-affinity carrier based on an iminodiacetic acid (IDA) derivative of dextran has been synthesized through the modification of Sephadex G-200 by IDA, followed by hydrolysis with dextranase and size-exclusion-chromatographic purification of the high-molecular-mass fragments. (3) The molecular size of the soluble products as a function of hydrolysis time with dextranase from Penicillium sp. was determined. The range of molecular size of the biopolymeric chelating ligand varies from around 200 Da to greater than 580 kDa. (4) The influence of three metal ions chelated with the Sephadex derivative on the hydrolysis rate and the molecular-size distribution of end products was studied. Eu3+ was found to improve the rate of solubilization. Ni2+ and Cu2+ decreased the hydrolysis rate, as compared with that of the metal-free IDA-Sephadex. (5) The method introduced here has the potential of being developed and applied as a general technology for synthesis of soluble multifunctional affinity ligands. Such ligands should be useful for liquid-phase extraction as well as for the synthesis of adsorbents with localized multiple binding sites. Other possible fields of applications are to be found in medicine, where they could be used for slow drug delivery or detoxification, and in analytical chemistry, where they could be used in various assays.

Isolation of calcium-binding proteins on selective adsorbents. Application to purification of bovine calmodulin.

We report the fractionation of calcium-binding proteins using immobilized metal ion affinity chromatography (IMAC) with hard metal ions. Various hard metal ions (Mn2+, La3+, Nd3+, Eu(3 were immobilized on cross-linked agarose substituted with Tris(carboxymethyl)ethylenediamine (TED) and used as an adsorbent. After systematic studies, europium was selected for further work on the fractionation of calcium-binding proteins. It was found that the presence of Ca2+ in the sample and the solvent strongly promoted the adsorption and selectivity. Selective elution was accomplished in stepwise mode by the addition of calcium chelators such as malonate, citrate and phosphate. Calmodulin of high purity was isolated from a crude extract. Similar behavior of other calcium-binding proteins indicates that the reported chromatographic procedure can be generally applied to such proteins.

Isolation and characterization of catalase from Penicillium chrysogenum.

Catalase from a crude preparation of Penicillium chrysogenum was isolated in a single chromatographic step by immobilized metal ion affinity chromatography (IMAC) on Cu(II)-Chelating Sepharose Fast Flow. A chromatographically and electrophoretically homogeneous enzyme was obtained in 89% yield. IMAC was found to be superior to ion-exchange, hydrophobic interaction, size-exclusion and concanavalin A affinity chromatography. Analytical and preparative chromatography gave essentially the same chromatograms. Isoelectric point, molecular weight (by ultracentrifugation), amino acid composition, carbohydrate content and subunit organization were determined. The apparent Michaelis-Menten constant, KM, and the azide competitor constant, Ki, were calculated and found to be 59 microM and 6.1 microM, respectively.