A rapid purification procedure and computer-assisted sulfide ion selective electrode assay for O-acetylserine sulfhydrylase from Salmonella typhimurium

An improved method for purifying O-acetylserine sulfhydrylase from Salmonella typhimurium is described as well as a new computer-controlled assay making use of the sulfide ion selective electrode. The purification method uses gradient elution from Q-Sepharose Fast Flow and phenyl-Sepharose columns to give 75 mg (50% yield) of the enzyme starting from 300 g of starting material in 3 days. The sulfide electrode assay makes use of sulfide and calomel electrodes attached to a signal buffer which serves as an impedance match. The output of the signal buffer is linked in parallel to a strip chart recorder and a Keithley Model 575 data acquisition and control system. The system 575 is interfaced to a Packard-Bell AT computer. In addition, two BASIC computer programs have been written to convert potential measured by the electrode to sulfide concentration and to convert the time course data to rates.