Surface DEAE groups facilitate protein transport on polymer chains in DEAE-modified-and-DEAE-dextran-grafted resins

Sequential diethylaminoethyl dextran-grafting and diethylaminoethyl modification improve the adsorption performance of anion exchangers

Ion exchangers with high adsorption capacity, fast mass transfer, and high salt-tolerance synchronously are highly desired for high-performance protein purification. Here, we propose a sequential diethylaminoethyl dextran-grafting and diethylaminoethyl chloride modification strategy to achieve high-performance anion exchangers. The advantages of the double-modification strategy lie in: (1) the introduction of diethylaminoethyl in the second modification has no diffusion limitation due to the small molecular size, thus a high ionic capacity; (2) the grafting ligands not only provide three-dimensional adsorption space for high adsorption capacitybut alsofacilitate surface diffusion of protein by chain delivery. The maximum adsorption capacity of the obtained anion exchangers for bovine serum albumin reaches 333 mg/mL, the ratio of effective pore diffusivity (De) to free solution diffusivity (D0) reaches 0.69, and the adsorption amount reaches 97 mg/mL even in 100 mmol/L NaCl concentration,. All these results demonstrate the proposed sequential modification strategy are promising for the preparation of high-performance ion exchangers.

Multi-size optimization of macroporous cellulose beads as protein anion exchangers: Effects of macropore size, protein size, and ligand length

Multi-size optimization of ion exchangers based on protein characteristics and understanding of underlying mechanism is crucial to achieve maximum separation performance in terms of adsorption capacity and uptake kinetic. Herein, we characterize the effects of three different sizes, macropore size, protein size, and ligand length, on the protein adsorption capacity and uptake kinetic of macroporous cellulose beads, and provide insights into the underlying mechanism. In detail, (1) for smaller bovine serum albumin, macropore size has a negligible effect on the adsorption capacity, while for larger γ-globulin, larger macropores improve the adsorption capacity due to the high accessibility of binding sites; (2) there is a critical pore size (CPZ), at which the adsorption uptake kinetic is minimum. When pore sizes are higher than the CPZ, uptake kinetics are enhanced by pore diffusion. When pore sizes are lower than CPZ, uptake kinetics are enhanced by surface diffusion; (3) increasing ligand length improves the adsorption capacity by three-dimensionally extended polymer chains in pores and enhances uptake kinetic by improved surface diffusion. This study offers an integrated perspective to qualitatively assess the effects of multiple sizes, providing guidance for designing advanced ion exchangers for protein chromatography.

Cationic Covalent Organic Framework as an Ion Exchange Material for Efficient Adsorptive Separation of Biomolecules

Although covalent organic frameworks (COFs) have earned significant interest in separation applications, the use of COFs in biomolecule separation remains unexplored. We examined the ionic COF Py-BPy²⁺-COF as an ion exchange material for biomolecule separation. After characterizing the properties of the synthesized COF with a variety of techniques, binding experiments with both large and small biomolecules were performed. High adsorption capacities of amino acids with different hydrophobicity and charge, as well as proteins of different isoelectric points and molecular weights, were determined in batch equilibrium experiments. Desorption experiments with mixtures of model proteins demonstrated an ability to successfully separate one protein from another with the selectivity hypothesized to be a combination of the isoelectric point, hydrophobicity, and ability to penetrate the crystalline material. Overall, the results demonstrated that Py-BPy²⁺-COF can be exploited as a robust crystalline anion exchange biomolecule separation material.

Performance of agarose and gigaporous chromatographic media as function of pore-to-adsorbate size ratio over wide span from ovalbumin to virus like particles

Two commercially available agarose ion exchange media, DEAE-Capto and DEAE-Sepharose FF (DEAE-FF), and two gigaporous media DEAE -AP-120 nm and DEAE-AP-280 nm were evaluated for their applicability in adsorption of five proteins with large span of radius ranges from 2.9 nm to 14.1 nm, which include ovalbumin, bovine serum albumin (BSA), haptoglobin, thyroglobulin and hepatitis B surface antigen (HBsAg) virus like particle. The average pore radius of the four media was determined to be 6.9 nm, 18.5 nm, 59.4 nm and 139.3 nm, respectively, which was obtained by log normal distribution for DEAE-Capto and DEAE-FF and by bimodal Gaussian distribution for the two DEAE-AP media. The performance of these four media including phase ratio, static and dynamic binding capacity, and transport properties for the adsorption of these five model proteins as function of pore-to-adsorbate size ratio were investigated and compared. The best ratio of pore-to-adsorbate size was found dependent on the protein size. For protein with radius from 2.9 nm (ovalbumin) to 5.4 nm (BSA), the agarose media was superior to gigaporous media. Both the static and dynamic adsorption capacities reduced with the increase of pore size, and the highest values were obtained at the smallest pore-to-adsorbate size of about 2 times in this study, although the highest accessible surface area was obtained at pore-to-adsorbate size ratio about 16 to 20. For proteins with radius of 5.4 nm or larger than that, their adsorption capacities decreased firstly and then increased with the increase of ratio of pore-to-adsorbate size, and the highest values were obtained on the gigaporous media DEAE-AP-280 nm, which could provide faster diffusivity and larger accessible surface area. However, protein with radius of 14.1 nm (HBsAg) had much lower capacities compared to other proteins at the same pore-to-adsorbate size ratio, implying large protein needs greater pore-to-adsorbate size ratio to achieve a satisfactory capacity. For all the five tested proteins, the DEAE-Capto media having the smallest pore radius and branched dextran chains, was found superior to DEAE-FF in terms of both higher adsorption capacities and uptake kinetics, which suggested that the "chain delivery effect" took place on proteins over large size span from ovalbumin to HBsAg, though the effect on the larger proteins was much less significant than that on the smaller ones. Results from the present work provided more information on how do the relationships of pore size of chromatography media and adsorbate size interactively affect the chromatography behaviors, thus will provide general guidance for selection of suitable adsorbent for biologics of a given size.

Recent advances in protein chromatography with polymer-grafted media

The strategy of using polymer-grafted media is effective to create protein chromatography of high capacity and uptake rate, giving rise to an excellent performance in high-throughput protein separation due to its high dynamic binding capacity. Taking the scientific development and technological innovation of protein chromatography as the objective, this review is devoted to an overview of polymer-grafted media reported in the last five years, including their fabrication routes, protein adsorption and chromatography, mechanisms behind the adsorption behaviors, limitations of polymer-grafted media and chromatographic operation strategies. Particular emphasis is placed on the elaboration and discussion on the behaviors of ion-exchange chromatography (IEC) with polymer-grafted media because IEC is the most suitable chromatographic mode for this kind of media. Recent advances in both the theoretical and experimental investigations on polymer-grafted media are discussed by focusing on their implications to the rational design of novel chromatographic media and mobile phase conditions for the development of high-performance protein chromatography. It is concluded that polymer-grafted media are suitable for development of IEC and mixed-mode chromatography with charged and low hydrophobic ligands, but not for hydrophobic interaction chromatography with high hydrophobic ligands and affinity chromatography with ligands that have single binding site on the protein.

A novel dextran-grafted tetrapeptide resin for antibody purification

Short peptide biomimetic affinity chromatography as a novel antibody separation chromatography is a potential alternative to protein A chromatography. However, if directly attaching ligand to matrix, the adsorption capacity and mass transfer rate would be affected by pore blockage and steric effect. Grafting resin is an effective method to solve this problem by using polymer as a bridge between matrix and ligand. In this work, a novel resin was prepared by grafting a tetrapeptide to the dextran-grafted matrix. Then, the adsorption properties for human immunoglobin G and BSA were determined. The results showed the saturation adsorption capacity could reach to 133 mg/g resin at pH 8.9 with a significantly low dissociation constant (0.03 mg/mL). The influence of flow rates to dynamic binding capacity of this resin was less than that of the non-grafted resin. The separation performance of the resin showed monoclonal antibody could be well isolated from the Chinese hamster ovary culture supernatant at pH 9.0 with the purity of 93.0% and yield of 84.7% by one step. Overall, this resin could achieve higher binding capacity by the possible of gaining higher ligand density, indicating its potential significance for separation in larger scale systems.

Biochemical engineering in China

Chinese biochemical engineering is committed to supporting the chemical and food industries, to advance science and technology frontiers, and to meet major demands of Chinese society and national economic development. This paper reviews the development of biochemical engineering, strategic deployment of these technologies by the government, industrial demand, research progress, and breakthroughs in key technologies in China. Furthermore, the outlook for future developments in biochemical engineering in China is also discussed.