A simple and gentle method for concentrating protein solutions.

A gentle method for concentrating very dilute protein solutions is described. The high capacity of aminohexylagarose in adsorbing different proteins is utilized to handle small or large amounts of protein with practically no losses in material or activity. To concentrate very dilute protein solutions as they occur during purification procedures e.g. of enzymes, a one-step non-inactivating method is needed that may easily be integrated into the purification program. In the course of the purification of a labile enzyme (1) we developed a simple chromatographic method which seems to work for a large variety of proteins. The procedure is applicable to very dilute protein solutions, to small samples as well as to large scale preparations, and it is relatively inexpensive. It appears to be a very gentle method since in all cases tested no loss of enzymic activity could be observed.