Purification of a recombinant protein produced in a baculovirus expression system by immobilized metal affinity chromatography

Over the past 10 years, the baculovirus-insect cell system has become a powerful and versatile tool for the expression of a variety of heterologous proteins. In order to simplify separation of a cloned protein from the baculovirus-insect expression system, we have cloned a gene encoding for the protein of interest, a structural protein (VP2) of a strain (E/DEL) of infectious bursal disease virus (IBDV), with a metal ion binding site (His)(5) at its C-terminus. This chimeric protein (VP2H) has been expressed and one-step affinity purified with immobilized metal ions (Ni(+2)). With antigen capture-enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (AC-ELISA), we determined that the conformation of this chimeric protein was no different from the recombinant wild-type VP2 protein. However, the two proteins (VP2 and VP2H) can be distinguished and resolved by sodium dodecyl sulfate-polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis (SDS-PAGE) and detected immunologically following Western blotting. (c) 1994 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.