Characterization of ferritin from spleens of patients with Hodgkin's disease (HD)

Ferritin, an iron-storing protein, was isolated from disease-involved and -uninvolved regions of spleen biopsies obtained from patients with Hodgkin's disease (HD). Ferritin from all human spleen biopsies showed a major band of polypeptide of M(r) around 20 kDa in 1D-SDS-PAGE analysis. The corresponding bands for horse spleen ferritin and apoferritin (Sigma) were at a slightly lower M(r) level. In isoelectrofocusing (IEF) studies, the pI values of human spleen ferritin from the uninvolved and involved regions were 4.55 and 4.14, respectively. These were more acidic than that of horse spleen ferritin (4.79). Human spleen ferritin from the involved region also differed from that of the uninvolved region in the pattern of CNBr-generated peptide maps in 1D-SDS-PAGE. These results suggest that the presence of Hodgkin's disease in human spleen is associated with some physiochemical changes in the tissue ferritin.