Application of compact porous tubes for preparative isolation of clotting factor VIII from human plasma.

Membranes as well as compact porous disks are successfully used for fast analytical separations of biopolymers. So far, technical difficulties have prevented the proper scaling-up of the processes and the use of membranes and compact disks for preparative separations in a large scale. In this paper, the use of a compact porous tube for fast preparative separations of proteins is shown as a possible solution to these problems. The units have yielded good results, in terms of performance and speed of separation. The application of compact porous tubes for the preparative isolation of clotting factor VIII from human plasma shows that this method can even be used for the separation of very sensitive biopolymers. As far as yield and purity of the isolated proteins are concerned, the method was comparable to preparative column chromatography. The period of time required for separation was five times shorter than with corresponding column chromatographic methods. Compact porous disks made of the same support material can also be used for in-process analysis in order to control the separation. The quick response, which is obtained from these units within 5 to 60 s, allows close monitoring of the purification process.

Application of compact porous disks for fast separations of biopolymers and in-process control in biotechnology.

Production and downstream processing in biotechnology requires fast and accurate control of each step in the process. Improved techniques which can be validated are required in order to meet these demands. For these purposes, chromatographic units containing compact porous disks for fast separation of biopolymers were developed and investigated with regard to their performance and speed. The problems that have, in the past, arisen from the use of wide and flat separation units, such as membranes and disks, have chiefly been those of sample distribution and large void volumes before and behind the unit. Improvements in the construction of the cartridge have led to better performance of the compact porous disks and faster separation. Using these disks, three calibration standard proteins could be separated within less than 1 min by an anion-exchange, cation-exchange, and hydrophobic interaction mode. Such units can be used for in-process control in production and downstream processing of biopolymers, as was shown in experiments involving the purification of α(1)-antitrypsin and clotting factor IX and the immobilization of enzyme glucose oxidase on an epoxy-activated compact porous disk.