Genetic immunization for the recovery and purification of recombinant proteins

A system that uses genetic immunization for recombinant protein recovery an d purification is described. The genetic sequence encoding a target protein is subcloned into both a eukaryotic and a prokaryotic vector. With the euk aryotic construct, a rabbit is genetically immunized and specific polyclona l antibodies to the encoded protein raised. The prokaryotic construct is us ed for bacterial transformation and expression of recombinant protein. Reco very and purification of target recombinant protein are obtained by passing the lysate of expressing bacteria through an immunoaffinity column prepare d with the polyclonal antibodies raised in the genetically immunized animal . This method allows purification of recombinant protein without fusion tai ls and can be applied to purify any protein whose encoding genetic sequence is known. (C) 2000 Academic Press.