An efficient method has been developed for the purification of recombinant rat gamma-interferon (rat rIFN-gamma). The procedure involves extraction of the Escherichia coli cell paste with 6 M guanidine-HCl (GuHCl), adsorption of the rat rIFN-gamma onto C8 alkyl-bonded silica, and elution with 50% propanol. The protein is essentially pure at this step, but is quantitatively precipitated by threefold dilution with aqueous buffer at pH 8.5. The precipitate is then dissolved with 6 M GuHCl in a buffer containing 0.05%. Tween-80 to about 0.3 mg/ml and dialyzed against the same buffer. The rat rIFN-gamma, which remains soluble on dialysis is again precipitated by dialysis against ammonium sulfate at 80% saturation. This final precipitate is readily soluble in 0.1 M ammonium acetate buffer, pH 8.5. The preparation is fully active and possesses a specific activity of 2-6 X 10(6) units/mg. The recoveries ranged from 50 to 85% in several experiments. The sequence of 20 amino acid residues from the NH2-terminus of the protein was determined using an automated sequencer and was found to agree with that deduced from the cDNA sequence.