Purification strategy for recombinant Phl p 6 is applicable to the natural allergen and yields biochemically and immunologically comparable preparations

The recombinant major grass pollen allergen Phl p 6 has been expressed with a N-terminal 6×His-tag sequence and subsequently purified using nickel-chelating Sepharose. After cleavage of the tag-sequence, a second pass over the affinity chromatography revealed that even untagged rPhl p 6 bound tightly. In order to determine if that property is typical for Phl p 6, the natural allergen was purified in the same way starting with a grass pollen extract. Indeed, nPhl p 6 could be highly enriched in one step using nickel-chelating Sepharose. In addition to this new powerful purification method, the results provide further information in that the recombinant and natural allergens share a lot of properties, since biochemical characteristics are reflected in the purification strategies. The preparations of natural and recombinant Phl p 6 were used for comparative electrophoretic, chromatographic and immunological analysis which demonstrated high similarity.