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Studies on Brain Antigens

III. Purification and Characterization of a Qater-Soluble Bovine Antigen Specific for Nervous Tissue (a-BASNT)¹

Department of Biochemistry and the Department of Psychiatry, Allan Memorial Institute, McGill University, Montreal, Quebec

Abstract

A water-soluble bovine antigen specific for nervous tissue, -BASNT, has been purified by a series of steps involving ammonium sulfate precipitation, DEAE-cellulose chromatography and preparative electrophoresis. The antigen also occurs in rat and human brain and in bovine spinal cord, but not in other bovine organs or in rat peripheral nerve. It is formed early in the development of the brain, as it was present in the brain of a 3-month-old human fetus. The cytoplasm of glial cells is rich in -BASNT.

-BASNT has a molecular weight of about 84,000, formed one band when analyzed at pH 8.9 or 7.2 in gels containing different concentrations of polyacrylamide, and in agar gel immunoelectrophoresis -BASNT had the electrophoretic mobility of an globulin. It contained 2% carbohydrate, and, although only slightly acidic, glutamic and aspartic acids composed 23% of its total amino acid content.

Differences between -BASNT and other brain proteins that have been identified within the last decade are discussed.

Footnotes

Supported by grants from the Banting Research Foundation, the Medical Research Council of Canada, and the Multiple Sclerosis Society of Canada. This work was presented in part at the annual meeting of the Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology, Atlantic City, N. J., April 1969, and is from a thesis submitted by Victor Hatcher to the Faculty of Graduate Studies and Research of McGill University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy.