Partial Purification of a Prostatic Growth Factor

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Abstract
A 5-step fractionation procedure was used to isolate a prostatic growth factor from a tisue homogenate of human benign prostatic hyperplasia. The procedure made use of the property of prostatic growth factor to occur predominately as a large molecule (> 67,000) in low ionic strength solution (Tris with 0.05 M NaCl) but as a smaller molecule (< 33,000) in high salt buffer (Tris with 1.55 M NaCl). The fractionation scheme consisted of ammonium sulfate precipitation, gel filtration (low ionic strength) and DEAE chromatography. The growth factor activity was eluted from DEAE with high ionic strength buffer followed by 2 gel filtrations steps in high ionic strength buffer. The fractionation scheme produced greater than a 200-fold increase in prostatic growth factor activity and 10% recovery. Additional separation steps will be required to purify prostatic growth factor to homogeneity.