Immunoaffinity Purification of Epitope-Tagged Human β2-Adrenergic Receptor to Homogeneity

To obtain large quantities of pure human β2-adrenergic receptor (β2-AR) needed for structural studies, an efficient method for β2-AR purification was developed using a recombinant receptor with an eight amino acid epitope at its C-terminus. This epitope is recognized by KT3-monoclonal antibody. The epitope tagged β2-AR was expressed in Sf9 cells with a specific activity of 5–20 pmol/mg of membrane protein. The epitope-tagged and wild-type receptors had identical ligand binding properties. The tagged receptor was solubilized using dodecyl-β-maltoside with a quantitative yield. Solubilized epitope-tagged receptors were partially purified by KT3-mAb immunoaffinity in 60–70% yield. Further purification of the receptors on an alprenolol-affinity column resulted in a homogenous preparation with an overall yield of >30%. The purified receptor was concentrated to >1 mg/ml without loss of ligand binding activity.