A high yield purification of the human transferrin receptor and properties of its major extracellular fragment

Human transferrin receptor is a disulfide-linked homodimer of 90-kDa glycoprotein subunits, capable of binding two transferrins. We report a new high yield affinity purification protocol for transferrin receptor from placenta which produces 3-4 mg of highly purified protein. Trypsin cleaves the protein at arginine-121, producing a stable fragment that contains 95% of the extracytoplasmic sequence; similar fragments are produced by several other proteases. The tryptic fragment is a nondisulfide-linked dimer in solution and binds two transferrin molecules. The dimensions of both the dimer fragment and its complex with transferrin are estimated by gel filtration.