A novel method will be described for the preparation and purification of fibrin(ogen) degradation products in high yields. The high yields are due to two factors. on the one hand an improved preparation method in which the size heterogeneity of the degradation products D is strongly reduced by plasmin digestion at well-controlled calcium concentrations. At calcium concentrations of 2mM exclusively D fragments, M.W.= 93-000 (Dcate) were formed; in the presence of 1OmM EGTA only fragments M.W.= 80.000 (D EGTA) were formed as described. on the other hand a new purification method, which includes Sephadex G-200 filtration to purify the D:E complexes and separation of the D and E fragments by a 16 hrs. preparative isoelectric focussing. The latter step gives a complete separation of D (fragments) (pH = 6.5) and E fragments (at pH = 4.5) without any overlap, thus allowing a nearly 100% recovery in this step. The overall recoveries are around 75% of the theoretical values. These recoveries are superior to those of existing procedures. Moreover the conditions of this purification procedure are very mild and probably do not affect the native configuration of the products. Amino-terminal amino acids of human Dcate, D EGTA and D-dimer are identical i.e. val, asx and ser. in the ratgly, asx and ser were found. E 1% for rat Dcate=17-8 for rat D EGTA=16.2 and for rat D- dimer=l8.3. for the corresponding human fragments, these values were all 20.0 ± 0.2.
