Purification and preliminary characterisation of a thiamine-binding protein from spruce seeds

A thiamine-binding protein was isolated from spruce seeds (Picea abies L.), Karst.) in a nearly homogeneous form using a combination of ammonium sulphate fractionation, DEAE-cellulose ion-exchange chromatography, high performance gel filtration on TSK G3000SW column and fast protein ion-exchange chromatography with MonoQ column. SDS-polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis revealed the basic subunit of 23 kDa. However, the native protein was an oligomer with a molecular mass of about 130 kDa as estimated by gel filtration on analytical Superdex-200 column. The estimated isoelectric point was about 5.1. Thiamine was bound with a capacity of 8.5 nmol per mg protein, suggesting a simple 1:1 molar stoichiometry of thiamine-protein interaction. The dissociation constant of the complex was 8 μM in 0.05 M phosphate buffer at optimal pH 8.6. Several thiamine analogues were also bound to this protein but always with a lower affinity than thiamine. From this chemical probing, the binding site on the spruce protein seems to fit the model, previously deduced for the purified buckwheat-seed protein and generalised in a study of seed extracts of species sampled from major classes of Spermatophyta.