A 13-kilodalton protein purified from milk fat globule membranes is closely related to a mammary-derived growth inhibitor.

With the use of specific antibodies against a previously purified [Boehmer, F.-D., Lehmann, W., Schmidt, H., Lange, P., & Grosse, R. (1984) Exp. Cell Res. 150, 466-477] and sequenced mammary-derived growth inhibitor (MDGI) [Boehmer, F.-D., Kraft, R., Otto, A., Wernstedt, C., Hellmann, U., Kurtz, A., Mueller, T., Rohde, K., Etzold, G., Lehmann, W., Langen, P., Heldin, C.-H., & Grosse, R. (1987) J. Biol. Chem. 262, 15137-15143], the localization and relative amount of immunoreactive 13-kilodalton (kDa) antigen in different fractions of bovine milk were determined. The highest amount of antigen was found to be associated with the milk fat globule membranes (MFGM). As revealed by a dot immunobinding assay, the amount of immunoreactive bovine and human MFGM-associated antigen increased dramatically with the onset of lactation after delivery. This finding corresponds to earlier data obtained for MDGI and indicates a relationship between the proliferative state of mammary epithelial cells and the amount of immunoreactive antigen. The 13-kDa antigen has been purified from MFGM to homogeneity by preparative sodium dodecyl sulfate-polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis and electroelution. The MFGM-derived 13-kDa polypeptide was found to be almost identical with MDGI as demonstrated by tryptic digestion and partial amino acid sequence analysis of tryptic fragments of both proteins. The results clearly show the presence of a membrane-bound MDGI-related 13-kDa protein, thus supporting the possible involvement of membrane-associated growth inhibitors in growth regulation of mammary epithelial cells.