Methods for expression and purification of biologically active recombinant progranulin

Abstract

Purifying progranulin may be useful in a variety of situations, for example, after it has been mutated or otherwise modified or when working with a species for which commercially produced progranulin is unavailable. A method to express and purify human progranulin is presented. Progranulin is transiently expressed in mammalian cells and isolated from their conditioned medium before purification by reversed-phase high-performance liquid chromatography (RP-HPLC). Human progranulin is used as an example, but the protocol can be applied to any other progranulin protein. Modifications of the expression-purification strategy for metabolic labeling of progranulin and analytical systems based on heparin-affinity chromatography are presented.