An improved procedure for the preparation of the human thyroglobulin and the development of a thyroglobulin autoantibody kit.

Human thyroglobulin has various applications as a diagnosis reagent or for studying the physiopathology of the protein and hormonal biosynthesis in the thyroid gland. The previous preparation procedure for isolating the human thyroglobulin currently used in our laboratory, has some inconveniences as regards the low yield and the noxious influence of the ammonium sulfate precipitation upon its molecular integrity. Therefore, we describe an improved fractionation and purification procedure whose main steps are extraction of the thyroid tissue homogenate in 0.15 M NaCl followed by a double gel filtration on Sephadex G-200 column. In this way are obtained thyroglobulins A and B grade using the two chromatographic steps, respectively. Thyroglobulin B grade is further submitted to preparative polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis for separating some thyroglobulin isomers as recognized by other groups using the analytical ultracentrifugation procedure. The different fractionation and purification steps were checked by double diffusion in gel using rabbit anti-thyroglobulin serum and horse antihuman serum protein. The homogeneity and the molecular weight of the different fractions we evidenced were analyzed by the aid of disc and plate electrophoresis in polyacrylamide gel. The authors developed the technique for thyroglobulin autoantibody detection by the passive haemaglutination method using stabilized erythrocytes coated with thyroglobulin A-grade. Thyroglobulin B-grade used as a tracer and a reference preparation in a RIA system offered a sensitivity of 1.5 micrograms/liter for thyroglobulin detection in biological fluids.