A Rapid Purification mlthod and Electrophoretic Studies of Human Milk Lysozyme

The lysozyme exists in many species of various vertebrates and invertebrates. Human lysozymes are found in many tissues and secretions. Ogawa et al. pointed out that the biochemical properties of human skin lysozyme were quite similar to those of human milk and leucocyte lysozymes (1, 2). Further, it was demonstrated that immunological properties of human lysozymes derived from various tissues or secretions were closely related to each other, and that. it was not related to egg white lysozyme (3). Therefore, it seems likely that the human lysozymes are not organ specific. Since human tissue lysozymes are not easy to obtain enough, it might be possible to utilize the milk lysozyme in place of the other lysozyme for the basic studies of human lysozymes. Human lysozyme was first purified by Jolles and Jolles (4). Previously, one of the authors also isolated, purified, and characterized human milk and. leucocyte lysozymes (5). In this paper, we describe the rapid preparation method to purify human milk lysozyme with special reference to the electrophoretic characteristics.