Large Scale Zone Electrophoresis with Solute Recycle

自由流动区带电泳在处理不稳定大分子方面的优势是众所周知的。这项技术是强大的，温和的，并且普遍适用于从低分子量抗生素到整个细胞的各种大小的生物材料。然而，到目前为止，还无法同时实现高分辨率和高吞吐量。在早期的研究中，也得到了NSF的支持，一个原型装置被构建来实验测试一种既能高通量又能优秀净化的设计；这些实验表明，该过程的数学模型适合设计的放大。原型模型的蛋白质吞吐量等于目前最好的商业设备。目前的拨款用于测试一种设备，该设备的吞吐量增加了两个数量级，约为100克/小时，并演示其对实际工业蛋白质混合物的分离能力。

The advantages of free-flow zone electrophoresis for processing labile macromolecules are well-known. The technique is powerful, gentle, and universally applicable to biomaterials ranging in size from low molecular weight antibiotics to whole cells. To date, however, it has been impossible to achieve high resolution and high throughput simultaneously. In an early study, also supported by NSF, a prototype device was constructed to experimentally test a design capable of both high throughput and excellent purifications; these experiments indicated the mathematical model of the process is adequate for scale-up of the design. The prototype model has a protein throughput equal to that of the best currently available commercial devices. The present grant is for testing of a device scaled-up to a throughput two orders of magnitude greater, on the order of 100 g/hr, and the demonstration of its separating power for realistic industrial protein mixtures.