IMMOBILIZED PH GRADIENT ISOELECTRIC-FOCUSING OF WOOL PROTEINS

Conventional carrier ampholyte-isoelectric focusing is unsuitable for separating wool and hair proteins. The inability to form stable narrow pH gradients at acidic pH values does not allow good resolution of th e many acidic wool and hair proteins. To evaluate the usefulness of im mobilised pH gradient-isoelectric focusing (IPG-IEF) for wool proteins , S-amidomethyl wool proteins were analysed using IPG-IEF. Over twenty bands were visible on a pH 4-7 IPG-IEF gel. IPG-IEF was combined with sodium dodecyl sulphate-polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis (SDS-PAGE) to give a two dimensional separation, and over 50 protein spots were observed. IPG-IEF appears to be ideally suited to the separation of wo ol proteins. The resolution of two-dimensional electrophoresis using I PG-IEF was greater than previously obtained using acid or alkaline PAG E in the first dimension. Good reproducibility of spot position was ob served.