Purification and some properties of rabbit anti-ovalbumin

Unlike previous reports that the ovalbumin-anti-ovalbumin complex did not dissociate completely in acid media, our results showed complete dissociation of the complex both in 1.2m-acetic acid, pH2.3, and in KCl-HCl, pH2.2, I 0.06. Thus Sephadex chromatography of the solution obtained by dissolving the antigen-antibody precipitate in these media repeatedly gave two peaks corresponding to anti-ovalbumin and ovalbumin. Further, gel-diffusion and immunoelectrophoresis experiments showed that the phosphate groups of ovalbumin are not involved in the antigenic sites. The antibody thus purified was more easily precipitated than previous preparations. The molecular weight and Stokes radius of the antibody were calculated from its gel-filtration behaviour and were found to be 148000 and 4.8nm respectively. The molecular weight determined by sodium dodecyl sulphate-polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis was essentially similar (about 0.7% lower).