High-performance-liquid chromatography of Thermus aquaticus 50S and 30S ribosomal proteins

The ribosomal 50S and 30S subunit proteins (r-proteins) of Thermus aquaticus have, for the first time, been characterized by size exclusion chromatography (SEC) and by reversed phase high performance liquid chromatography (RPC). To ensure that the best resolution in the RPC was obtained. the elution conditions, such as gradient time, flow rate, temperature, ionic strength of the eluent and the type of stationary phase were optimized. Correlation between experimentally found retention times and those predicted by DryLab G was better than 0.7% over 30 peaks. Protein fractions from RPC runs were desalted and processed by gel electrophoresis so that the ribosomal proteins could be identified by their position on SDS-polyacrylamide gels. The enhanced speed and quality of separation which has been achieved in this study is expected to bring advantaces in experimental work with ribosomal proteins as well as with other biopolymers. In our case the high resolution technique provides a basis for the preparation of a collection of individual ribosomal protein components for future rRNA-protein interaction studies.