Human liver alkaline phosphatase purified by affinity chromatography, ultracentrifugation and polyacrylamide-gel electrophoresis.

A method is presented for the preparation of human liver alkaline phosphatase (orthophosphoric monoester phosphohydrolase, EC 3.1.3.1). The method gives a purification factor of 12.5 X 10(3) over the initial aq. butan-1-ol extract, a recovery of 6.0% and a specific activity for the preparation of 1450-1550 units/mg of protein, 1 unit being defined as the amount of enzyme catalysing the hydrolysis of 1mumol of p-nitrophenyl phosphate/min at 35 degrees C in 0.1 M-2-amino-2-methylpropan-1-ol/HCl buffer, pH 10.5, containing 10mM-p-nitrophenyl phosphate. Homogeneity was studied by ultracentrifugation, by immunoelectrophoresis and by polyacrylamide-gel electrophoresis. A single contaminating protein was present which was less than 5% of the total. Ultracentrifugation and equilibrium-gradient-pore electrophoresis techniques indicated a mol.wt. of 156000 and 160000 respectively. Equilibrium-gradient-pore electrophoresis indicated that the alkaline phosphatase molecule is possibly a dimer, comprising two subunits of about 80000 mol.wt. Amino acid analysis proved remarkably similar to that for alkaline phosphatase from other sources, regardless of species.