Isolation of alpha-crystallin subunits by gel filtration

In the presence of 0.1 M glycine, pH 2.5, alpha-crystallin dissociates into aggregates containing only alpha A chains plus monomeric alpha B chains. Advantage has been taken of this to develop a method for the purification of the alpha A and alpha B chains by gel filtration on Sephadex G-75. This method gives high yields of purified subunits and avoids the risk of carbamylation associated with other methods which use high concentrations of urea.