The use of aqueous two‐phase systems to concentrate and purify bovine leukemia virus outer envelope protein gp51

Enzootic bovine leucosis is a chronic lymphoproliferative disease of cattle. The causative agent, bovine leukemia virus (BLV), is related to the human retroviruses HTLV-I and -II. The external env-protein of BLV, a glycoprotein of 51 kDa, carries neutralizing epitopes and should be an essential component in a vaccine against the virus. Problems have been encountered with the concentration and purification of intact virions of BLV and other retroviruses. During centrifugation procedures the external env-proteins are to a great extent detached and consequently poorly recovered with the virion particles. Therefore, other methods are sought to obtain a high yield of the external glycoproteins. The use of two-phase systems based on water soluble polymers is described for the extraction of BLV-gp51 from culture medium. Several polymer systems were tested and the results showed that some were attractive for large scale application. The classical combination dextran-polyethylene glycol gave promising results; a partition coefficient of about 0.02 was obtained for the distribution of the gp51 between the top and combined inter- and bottom phases. In a single extraction step it was possible to obtain 45% of the glycoprotein in a small volume bottom phase and at the same time about 15-fold purified. That should be compared with a recovery of less than 20% with the conventional centrifugation procedures. It is concluded that extraction in phase systems based on water soluble polymers is a methodology well suited for the concentration and purification of BLV-gp51.