Monash installs giant protein purification system

Monash University is hoping to move into the big league of international protein research after completing the world's largest installation of GE Healthcare's new parallel protein purification workstation, in readiness for first light from Victoria's new $180 million synchrotron in 2007.

The total cost of the system will be between $1.5 and $1.8 million, including set-up costs, and robotics to automate fluid handling.

GE Healthcare's new AKTAexpress liquid chromatography protein-purification system can turn cellular extracts into milligram quantities of high-purity proteins in less than 6 hours, according to Dr Steve Bottomley, of the conformational disease group in the university's Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology.

Bottomley said he previewed the system in the US last March, a month before GE Healthcare officially announced its release in Switzerland in April. He described it as "a wonderful piece of technology".

Each unit, which employs Pharmacia's SPLC liquid chromatography columns, can purify four different proteins; 12 units in parallel can deliver up to 50 milligrams each of 48 different proteins in a single run.

Bottomley said that's more than enough for crystallisation and structural studies in a synchrotron X-ray beamline, or to perform cell biology assays.

The protein purification facility, based in the Department of Biochemistry, will be closely associated with the new synchrotron.

Dr James Whisstock, scientific director of the Victorian Bioinformatics Consortium, said an understanding of the atomic structure of protein molecules was fundamental to understanding their function - and malfunction - in the body.

The rate at which proteins involved in heart disease, cancer osteoporosis and immune deficiencies could be purified for study was currently constrained by the rate at which researchers could produce proteins in sufficient quantities for structure-function research.

"Parallel protein production will give us the means to produce large amounts of different proteins in a high-throughput fashion, and the Synchrotron will allow us to rapidly collect diffraction data right here in Australia," said Whisstock.

"At present one scientist basically produces one protein at a time. The process involves growing bacteria in the lab, disrupting the cells, washing the samples and finally extracting and purifying the proteins, and can take up to a week to complete.

"Because of equipment and personnel constraints, researchers often had to wait for one production run to end before starting another one."

The high-throughput AKTAxpress system would allow researchers to produce up to 48 different proteins in parallel, at genuine production scale.

"A typical scientist would be hard pushed to produce large scale quantities of 48 different proteins in a year, let alone in the eight hours it takes for the AKTAxpress to do its work" Whisstock said.

Peter Simpson, General Manager Australasia, for GE Healthcare Biosciences, said the system would not only improve Australia's medical research, but would be useful in other areas such as agriculture.

"Numerous vaccine development programs also require the production of proteins," said Simpson. "Finding vaccines for major livestock diseases, for example, can have a direct impact on Australian farmers, the quality of Australian produce, and the Australian economy as a whole."

The system's purchase was been funded through an Australian Research Council Large Infrastructure and Equipment Fund grant af around $150,000 and contributions from Monash's New Research Areas grants, Melb University and the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute.

Whisstock said it will provide enormous capacity for the ARC Centre for Structural and Functional Microbial Genomics and the National Health and Medical Research Council program for protease systems biology.