Prostate cancer metastasizes predominantly to bone, where it induces osteoblastic lesions. Paracrine factors secreted by the metastatic cancer cells are thought to mediate these events. We previously isolated a novel bone metastasis-related factor (MDA-BF-1) from bone marrow aspirate samples from patients with prostate cancer and bone metastasis, and found that this factor stimulated osteoblast differentiation, possibly by interacting with a receptor on the ostcoblasts. Identifying this putative MDA-BF-1 receptor biochemically requires the expression of MDA-BF-1 for receptor binding assays and for the preparation of a ligand-affinity column. We tagged MDA-BF-1 with a peptide containing a protein kinase A phosphorylation site plus a 7-histidine sequence to facilitate the labeling of MDA-BF-1 for receptor binding assay and the binding of MDA-BF1-1 to an immobilized metal affinity column. The recombinant MDA-BF1-1 protein (MDA-BF1-kinase-his) was expressed in Sf9 cells using a baculovirus expression system. About 0.8mg of purified MDA-BFI-kinase-his protein was obtained from 4 x 10(8) Sf9 cells. MDA-BFI-kinase-his can be phosphorylated by PKA with a specific activity around 10(5) Cpm/mu g protein. Receptor binding assays using this P-32-labeled MDA-BF1-1 showed that MDA-BF1-1 bound to membranes prepared from Saos-2, an osteosarcoma cell line, and C2Cl2, a mouse pluripotent mesenchymal precursor cell line that can be induced to become osteoblast by BMP-2. In contrast, MDA-BF-1 did not bind to membranes from PC-3 human prostate cancer cells or HEK293 human embryonic kidney cells. These observations suggest that the MDA-1317-1 receptor is expressed in cells of ostcoblastic lineage. In addition to its use as a ligand for receptor binding assays, a ligand affinity column can be prepared by binding MDA-BF1-kinase-his to an IMAC for the purification of MDA-BF-1 receptor. (c) 2005 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.