Purification and characterization of the seven cyanogen bromide fragments of human serum transferrin

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Abstract
1. Procedures are described for the isolation of seven distinct cyanogen bromide fragments in high yield from human serum transferrin. 2. Cyanogen bromide-cleaved transferrin is separated into three fragments (CN-A, CN-B and CN-C) by gel filtration with Sephadex G-100. 3. Four peptides are obtained from CN-A (the largest fragment) after reduction and carboxamidomethylation, by gel filtration in acidic solvents. Two peptides are similarly obtained from fragment CN-B, whereas fragment CN-C is a single cystine-free peptide. 4. The molecular weights of the seven peptides, as determined by polyacrylamide-gel electrophoresis in the presence of sodium dodecyl sulphate, by sedimentation-equilibrium ultracentrifugation and by sequence studies, range from 3100 to 27000. Together they account for a molecular weight of 76200 for transferrin. 5. The two largest fragments contain the carbohydrate attachment sites of the protein, and the smallest fragment is derived from the N-terminus. 6. The amino acid compositions and N-terminal groups of the fragments are reported and the results compared with those of previous investigations.