Bovine retina contains three growth factor activities with different affinity to heparin: eye derived growth factor I, II, III.

Several ocular tissues have been shown to contain growth factor activity designated under a generic name as Eye Derived Growth Factor. Purification from bovine retina was undertaken and a fraction which could induce target cells to proliferate at doses of 5 ng per ml of culture medium was obtained. Using heparin sepharose chromatography we now show that this mitogenic activity can be fractionated into three different activities. Crude extract of bovine retina used as starting material was separated into two major fractions, one with no affinity for heparin and which was named Eye Derived Growth Factor III, and one with a strong affinity for heparin and eluted from the column with 1.4 M NaCl named Eye Derived Growth Factor I. This fraction EDGF I induces cell proliferation at doses of 100 pg/ml of culture medium. A 10(5) fold purification was achieved by this single chromatography step. Cibacron Blue purified EDGF was also further fractionated by heparin sepharose. All biological activity was found to bind to heparin. One fraction eluted at 1 M NaCl named Eye Derived Growth Factor II had a biological activity at doses of 1 ng while the other growth factor was the EDGF I with biological activity at 25 pg. At this step of purification EDGF I runs as a single band on SDS polyacrylamide gel at a molecular weight of 17 000 d. These data strongly suggest that Eye Derived Growth Factors I and II are respectively similar to Brain Fibroblast Growth Factor and to Endothelial Cell Growth Factor from hypothalamus.