APPLICATION OF IMMUNOBLOTTING TO THE SPECIFIC CONTROL OF OVINE CASEINFRACTIONATION

A general analytical procedure has been developed based on whole casei n fractionation using anion exchange column chromatography and identif ication of the recovered fractions by immunoblotting. An example of fr actionation of an individual ovine casein sample on Mono Q column is p resented with the aim to check the purity of the chromatographic fract ions. The separation of the casein fractions was carried out using gel isoelectric focusing and polyclonal antibodies against each of the 4 main bovine casein fractions. It was discovered that most of the casei n fractions contaminated each other when immunoblotting was used to sp ecifically reveal single casein fractions. The procedure developed for the identification of casein fractions seems to be simple and fast in comparison with the time-consuming biochemical strategies used up to now.