Purification of fusion ferritin using silica powder and DEAE chromatography

Iron is an essential nutrient for most organisms, which supplied to them in a protein-iron complex known as ferritin. Ferritins are multimeric proteins those are consisted of spherical shell of 24 subunits defining a cavity of about 8nm in diameter. Soluble form of ferritin was separated from disrupted cells, followed by silica powder adsorption. Ferritin was recovered from silica-poweder by distiiled water, which was applied to DEAE anion exchage chromatography. Collected fractions from the DEAE column were assayed to gain the amount and the purity of ferritin by using GF-HPLC.