A study on the separation of reconstituted proteoliposomes and unincorporated membrane proteins by use of hydrophobic affinity gels, with special reference to band 3 from bovine erythrocyte membranes.

Alkyl-Sepharose 4B with octyl, decyl, or dodecyl groups as an alkyl chain was a good adsorbent for any type of detergents and a variety of proteins, but not for phospholipids in a vesicle form. When these gels were added to the mixtures of reconstituted proteoliposomes prepared by using bovine band 3 and the protein unincorporated into liposomes, free band 3 in solution was adsorbed onto the gels and the proteoliposomes could be recovered by filtration, suggesting that this procedure, when applicable, permits a rapid isolation of proteoliposomes without loss and dilution of the sample. In addition, the results indicated that Bio-Beads SM-2 resin, which is virtually nonadsorbing for most proteins, can be used in removing any kind of detergents from those protein-detergent mixtures.