[The chromophore of blue dextran: a powerful ligand for the purification of interferon by affinity chromatography]

The chromophore of blue dextran can be used as ligand for affinity chromatography of interferon. One passage of a crude interferon preparation on a blue-dextran-sepharose column eliminates over 90% of the contaminating proteins. Desorption with an aqueous buffer of high molarity yields interferon preparations with specific activities of up to 4.5 X 10(6) units per milligram of protein and the recovery is 100%.