High-yield Purification and Characterization of Recombinant Human Leukotactin-1 in Pichia pastoris

The human chemokine, the short version of leukotactin-1(shLkn-1;molecular weight=7.2 kD and 66 amino acids), was expressed and secreted into a culture medium using the me-thylotrophic yeast, Pichia pastoris. The recombinant shLkn-1 was purified from the culture supernatant using a simple two-step procedure consisting of cation exchange and reverse phase chromatography(RPC), in which shLkn-1 was highly purified (99.5%) with a high recovery yield of 82.7%. The C-terminal truncated derivative of shLkn-1 was found in the supernatant and was separated by RPC. The physicochemical properties of the purified shLkn-1 were verified to be the same as expected. The biological activity of the purified recombinant shLkn-1 was also quantified using a chemotaxis assay. It was observed that the recombinant shLkn-1 had the maximum migration activity at a concentration of 10nM, as potent as MIP-1<TEX>${alpha}$</TEX>.