New Techniques for Affinity Precipitation of Proteins

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This project aims to develop two new techniques for purifying biological macromolecules such as enzymes and antibodies from complex media while attaining high selectivity, yield, and activity. The techniques belong to the class of affinity separation techniques but are distinguished by using affinity surfactants. It is proposed that the use of affinity surfactants increases effectiveness by limiting nonspecific hydrophobic interactions between different proteins that plague other protein precipitation techniques. The target proteins for the study are the oligomeric dehydrogenase enzymes and the class of IgG antibodies. Affinity surfactants will be synthesized and purified as part of the project. The surfactants will be used either directly dissolved in the aqueous protein solution or by incorporation into unilamellar vesicles. Precipitation is an important purification process in many chemical processes. It has had limited utility in biotechnology because of the nonspecific nature of hydrophobic interactions between proteins. Affinity surfactant precipitation of proteins is a promising technique to improve the usefulness of precipitation technology in downstream processing in biotechnology.