Development of immunoaffinity chromatographic method for Ara h 2 isolation.

Ara h 2 is considered a major allergen in peanut. Due to the difficulty of separation, Ara h 2 had not been fully studied. Immunoaffinity chromatography (IAC) column can separate target protein with high selectivity, which made it possible to purify Ara h 2 from different samples. In this study, IAC method was developed to purify Ara h 2 and its effect was evaluated. By coupling polyclonal antibody (pAb) on CNBr-activated Sepharose 4B, the column for specific extraction was constructed. The coupling efficiency of the IAC column was higher than 90%, which made the capacity of column reached 0.56 mg per 0.15 g medium (dry weight). The recovery of Ara h 2 ranged from 93% to 100% for different concentrations of pure Ara h 2 solutions in 15 min. After using a column 10 times, about 88% of the column capacity remained. When applied to extract Ara h 2 from raw peanut protein extract and boiled peanut protein extract, the IAC column could recovery 94% and 88% target protein from the mixture. SDS-PAGE and Western blotting analysis confirmed the purified protein was Ara h 2, its purity reached about 90%. Significantly, the IAC column could capture dimer of Ara h 2, which made it feasible to prepared derivative of protein after processing.

Purification of antibody against Ara h 2 by a homemade immunoaffinity chromatography column.

Antibodies are used extensively in numerous applications both in vivo and in vitro. To purify anti-Ara h 2 polyclonal antibody, a homemade immunoaffinity chromatography (IAC) column method was established. The properties of homemade column were compared with those of the mAb affinity protein G (MPG) agarose high flow, a commercially available column successfully used in capturing polyclonal antibodies. During antibody purification from rabbits' antiserum against Ara h 2, the column capacity, recovery, and purification factor were characterized for IAC and MPG. The homemade IAC could separate the corresponding antibody with higher specificity and lower cost but with lower recovery and column capacity than those of MPG. Thus, the homemade IAC is a specific, inexpensive, and suitable method that can be used for various laboratory purifications.