DIFFERENCES BETWEEN NATURAL AND RECOMBINANT INTERLEUKIN-2 REVEALED BYGEL-ELECTROPHORESIS AND CAPILLARY ELECTROPHORESIS

High-performance capillary electrophoresis (HPCE) is shown to be usefu l for analysis of interleukin-2 (IL-2) in its native state under non-r educing conditions. The results obtained were compared with those from analysis of IL-2 by protein blotting after sodium dodecylsulfate poly acrylamide gel electrophoresis (SDS-PAGE) under denaturing and reducin g conditions. In addition, resolution of the different glycosylated an d non-glycosylated natural IL-2 species was achieved by HPCE. The HPCE electropherogram of native IL-2 could easily generate quantitative am ounts of the different naturally occurring IL-2 species. For HPCE of I L-2 run times of less than 10 min are sufficient, and only extremely s mall amounts of IL-2 are needed. In this report, human IL-2 expressed in bacteria has been analysed by HPCE and the existence of two recombi nant IL-2 forms was demonstrated.