Purification of low molecular weight metal-binding proteins by preparative polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis: properties of electrophoretically purified rat liver (Cd, Zn) - metallothioneins.

A method is proposed for purification of metallothionein by preparative polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis. The method enables purification of 100-700 mg of a preparation containing (Cd, Zn) - metallothionein yielding preparations of considerably higher purity as compared with those obtained by ion-exchange chromatography.