Calibration of the relative molecular mass of proteoglycan subunit by column chromatography on Sepharose CL-2B

Calibration relationships were derived for cartilage proteoglycan subunit (PGS) that relate the inverse z-average hydrodynamic radius (Rs) and the weight-average Mr (Mw) to the partition coefficient (Kav.) for PGS when chromatographed on a Sepharose CL-2B column. PGS isolated from chick limb-bud chondrocyte cell cultures was fractionated chromatographically into eight pools, for which Mw and Rs were determined by total-intensity and dynamic light-scattering measurements. These data were found to be related to Kav. through the following empirical equations: log Mw = -(1.65 +/- 0.27)Kav. +(6.58 +/- 0.08); log Rs = -(0.69 +/- 0.04)Kav. +(2.75 +/- 0.01). Application of these relationships to the chromatographic data led to Mw = 1.48 X 10(6) and Rs = 38.7 nm (387 A) for the unfractionated specimens compared with values of Mw = 1.46 X 10(6) and Rs = 38.2 nm (382 A) determined by light-scattering. Our results were found to be consistent with previously proposed phenomenological models for the gel-filtration mechanism. Application of these calibration relationships to Kav. for several unfractionated specimens led to predicted values of Mw and Rs that are accurate to within 10%.