Purification of catalase from human placenta

The therapeutic use of an antioxidant complex containing superoxide dismuta se and catalase has been proposed for the treatment of several diseases in which reactive oxygen species have an important role, Although superoxide d ismutase for human use is commercially available, methods for the productio n of catalase for human use have not been described. An industrial process was developed for the purification of catalase for human use as a by-produc t of albumin production from human placenta, comprising two parts: (1) albu min and catalase co-purification steps, including blood extraction from gro und placentas, precipitation of haemoglobin with ethanol/chloroform, concen tration/diafiltration by tangential filtration and anionic chromatography, by which non-adsorbed catalase was separated from albumin; and (2) catalase purification steps after albumin separation, including a second anionic ch romatography step and dye-affinity chromatography, This method provided a f inal recovery of 27% (70-100% in each step) with 670-fold purification of c atalase (85 % pure) and a specific activity of 49000 units/mg, which is hig her than that of commercially available human catalase, This process permit s the co-purification of catalase and albumin and can easily be scaled up.