The State of Aggregation of α‐Crystallin Detected after Large‐Scale Preparation by Zonal Centrifugation

The protein α‐crystallin from calf eye lenses can be isolated in very high yield by zonal centrifugation. No other purification steps are required in order to obtain preparations the purity criteria of which allow sequence studies after dissociation into polypeptide chains. By this method evidence is provided that α‐crystallin is a population of aggregates built up by four different polypeptide chains, occurring in an almost constant ratio independent on the size of the aggregate.