title: Identification of the residues involved in homodimer formation of recombinant human erythropoietin.
abstract: Recombinant human erythropoietin (rHuEPO) is biologically functional when in a monomeric state; upon extensive heating, rHuEPO forms a dimer. The nature of this dimeric linkage was investigated after isolation of the dimer by gel filtration. The dimer fraction was subjected to tryptic digestion, and the peptides were separated by reversed-phase HPLC. SDS-PAGE, N-terminal sequencing, capillary electrophoresis and mass spectrometry (both liquid-chromatographic electrospray and matrix-assisted laser desorption ionization) were employed to compare the tryptic peptides from heat-treated rHuEPO and untreated rHuEPO. Results demonstrated that elevated heat broke the intramolecular disulfide bond between Cys-7 and Cys-161 and an intermolecular disulfide bond then formed from these residues, producing a covalently linked rHuEPO homodimer. Dimer formation was also mathematically modeled and shown to fit a simple equilibrium.
authors: Amgen Inc., Thousand Oaks, California, USA.
authors: P L
authors: PL
authors: Derby
authors: T W
authors: TW
authors: Strickland
authors: M F
authors: MF
authors: Rohde
authors: K
authors: K
authors: Stoney
authors: R S
authors: RS
authors: Rush
mesh_terms: D000595:Amino Acid Sequence; D002850:Chromatography, Gel; D019281:Dimerization; D019075:Electrophoresis, Capillary; D004591:Electrophoresis, Polyacrylamide Gel; D004921:Erythropoietin / Q000737:chemistry* / Q000235:genetics; D006358:Hot Temperature; D006801:Humans; D007700:Kinetics; D008969:Molecular Sequence Data; D010446:Peptide Fragments / Q000737:chemistry; D011487:Protein Conformation; D011994:Recombinant Proteins; D019032:Spectrometry, Mass, Matrix-Assisted Laser Desorption-Ionization; D014357:Trypsin / Q000378:metabolism
chemical_list: D010446:Peptide Fragments; D011994:Recombinant Proteins; D004921:Erythropoietin; D014357:Trypsin