The supernatant was used directly after clarification in some experiments, or in some cases, the fusion proteins were purified via the 6 × Histidine tag using Nickel-NTA agarose beads (Qiagen, Valencia, CA) and Poly-Prep® Chromatography
columns (BioRad, Hercules, CA) using the manufacturer’s recommendations. Interleukin-2 or the IL-2Rα chain was detected using either the anti-IL-2 monoclonal antibody (JES6-1A12; BD Pharmingen) or the anti-mouse IL-2Rα monoclonal antibody (PC61; BD Pharmingen), respectively. Wells of a 96-well plate were coated with either antibody (2·5 μg/ml) in PBS. Wells were blocked with 5% non-fat milk in PBS with 0·2% Tween (PBS-M-Tw) and fusion proteins were added for 1–2 hr at 37°. After PF-02341066 mouse washing, an anti-mouse IL-2 Epigenetics inhibitor biotin-labelled antibody (JES5H4; BD Pharmingen) was added and binding was detected using Strepavidin HRP (Southern Biotechnology Associates, Birmingham, AL). The ELISA plate was developed by adding 50 μl o-phenylenediamine (Sigma-Aldrich) in 0·1 m citrate buffer pH
4·5 and 0·04% H2O2, stopped by adding 50 μl/well 2 M H2SO4 and the absorbance was read at 490 nm. Immunoblot analyses were performed as reported previously with minor modifications.27 The following monoclonal antibodies were used: rat anti-mouse IL-2 antibody (JES6-1A12; BD Pharmingen), rat anti-mouse IL-2Rα (PC61; BD Pharmingen), and mouse anti-6 × His monoclonal antibody (MM5-156P; Covance, Princeton, NJ). Detection was performed using a goat anti-rat
HRP-conjugated antibody (Jackson Immuno Research, West Grove, PA) and developed using the Amersham ECL Plus Western blotting detection reagent (GE Healthcare) following the manufacturer’s recommendations. A determination of fusion protein concentration new was established using immunoblot analyses and quantitative densitometry and compared with recombinant IL-2. For MMP immunoblot analyses, extracts or supernatants were probed with goat anti-mouse MMP2 or MMP9 antibodies (R&D Systems, Minneapolis, MN). Fusion proteins were digested with PSA (Cortex Biochem, San Leandro, CA) or prostate extracts in 50 mm Tris–HCl, 100 mm NaCl pH 7·8 at 37°. For digestion of the fusion protein containing the MMP cleavage sequence, MMP9 or MMP2 (R&D Systems) was activated with p-aminophenylmercuric acetate and this activated protease or equivalent amount of activating solution without the protease was used to digest the fusion protein for 1 hr at 37° for MMP9 and 10 min for MMP2. Aliquots of digests were loaded on 15% Laemmli gels for Western blotting.