Quantitative investigation of the interaction between granulocyte‐macrophage colony‐stimulating factor and heparin by capillary zone electrophoresis

The interactions between granulocyte‐macrophage colony‐stimulating factor (GM‐CSF) and heparin or low‐molecular weight heparin (LMWH) were studied by CZE. It was found that GM‐CSF could bind to both heparin and LMWH. The binding constants were calculated from Scatchard regression to be (6.5 ± 0.8)×10 5 /M and (11.2 ± 0.7)×10 5 /M, respectively. The specificity of the interaction between GM‐CSF and heparin was also studied by employing another sulfated κ carrageenan oligosaccharide as a control. Results showed that κ carrageenan oligosaccharide could not interact with GM‐CSF, indicating that GM‐CSF could specifically interact with heparin.