Comparison of Different Electrophoretic Separations of Hen Egg White Proteins

• Published in: Journal of agricultural and food chemistry 2001-10, Vol.49 (10), p.4553-4561
• Main Authors: Desert, C, Guérin-Dubiard, C, Nau, F, Jan, G, Val, F, Mallard, J
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Animals; Biological and medical sciences; Blotting, Western; Chickens; Conalbumin - isolation & purification; Egg and egg product industries; Egg Proteins - isolation & purification; Electrophoresis - methods; Electrophoresis, Polyacrylamide Gel - methods; Food engineering; Food industries; Fundamental and applied biological sciences. Psychology; General aspects; Isoelectric Focusing - methods; Isoelectric Point; Life Sciences; Methods of analysis, processing and quality control, regulation, standards; Ovalbumin - isolation & purification; Ovomucin - isolation & purification
• ISSN: 0021-8561; 1520-5118
• DOI: 10.1021/jf001423n

The hen egg white protein composition has not yet been fully defined. To improve the knowledge of this biological fluid, the most usual and recently developed electrophoretic methods have been used: SDS−PAGE, native−PAGE, isoelectric focusing (IEF), and 2-dimensional electrophoresis (2DE). Seven of the major known proteins were thus identified in at least one electrophoretic system. Isoforms of ovotransferrin, ovalbumin, and ovomucoid were visualized when pI was used for the separation. Two-dimensional electrophoresis allowed separation of a very large number of spots. In each of the four systems, some components were revealed but not identified, and unknown spots were particularly numerous with 2DE. With this technique, many spots corresponding to small acidic proteins were highlighted, among which was the Ch21 protein, whose presence in hen egg white was thus confirmed. This study thus constitutes, to our knowledge, the first proteomic investigation of hen egg white. Keywords: Hen egg white; protein; SDS−PAGE; native−PAGE; IEF; two-dimensional gel electrophoresis; immunodetection; proteomic