Isolation of calcium-binding proteins on selective adsorbents Application to purification of bovine calmodulin

We report the fractionation of calcium-binding proteins using immobilized metal ion affinity chromatography (IMAC) with hard metal ions. Various hard metal ions (Mn2+, La3+, Nd3+, EU(3+)) were immobilized on cross-linked agarose substituted with Tris(carboxymethyl)ethylenediamine (TED) and used as an adsorbent. After systematic studies, europium was selected for further work on the fractionation of calcium-binding proteins. It was found that the presence of Ca2+ in the sample and the solvent strongly promoted the adsorption and selectivity. Selective elution was accomplished in stepwise mode by the addition of calcium chelators such as malonate, citrate and phosphate. Calmodulin of high purity was isolated from a crude extract. Similar behavior of other calcium-binding proteins indicates that the reported chromatographic procedure can be generally applied to such proteins.