Issue 7, 2020

Hybrid alginate–protein cryogel beads: efficient and sustainable bio-based materials to purify immunoglobulin G antibodies

Abstract

Antibodies present in mammal's serum are of high relevance for therapeutic purposes, particularly in passive immunization and in the treatment of some chronic diseases. However, their widespread use is still compromised by the requirement of several process steps for their purification and the difficulty in keeping antibodies stable to guarantee their therapeutic efficiency. These challenges significantly contribute to the current high cost of biopharmaceuticals, namely antibodies such as immunoglobulin G (IgG). Accordingly, the development of effective and sustainable purification strategies for antibodies and other biopharmaceuticals is in critical demand to decrease economic, environmental and health burdens. Herein, bio-based and low-cost hybrid alginate–protein cryogel beads were prepared, characterized, and applied as novel adsorbent materials for the purification of IgG from human serum. It is shown that hybrid materials are more efficient than the respective alginate beads since the presence of proteins increases the material selectivity for IgG, which is due to the specific interactions occurring between the target antibody and amino acid residues in the hybrid materials. Several operating conditions, such as pH, adsorption time and serum concentration, were optimized to improve the recovery yield and purity of IgG. Adsorption isotherms were determined to infer the adsorption mechanism of IgG onto the cryogel beads and to determine their adsorption capacity (175 mg of IgG per g of cryogel beads). Under the optimized conditions, IgG can be recovered from the hybrid materials using buffered aqueous solutions, with a purity of 80% and a recovery yield of 91%. The stability and integrity of the antibody are retained after the desorption step. Finally, the regeneration and reuse of the cryogel beads were evaluated, with no losses in the IgG adsorption performance and antibody stability. Although significant efforts have been put on the development of novel affinity ligands to replace the standard chromatographic methods to purify IgG, this work demonstrates the potential of bio-based and low-cost hybrid materials as promising alternatives, in which proteins can be used to improve the material selectivity.

Graphical abstract: Hybrid alginate–protein cryogel beads: efficient and sustainable bio-based materials to purify immunoglobulin G antibodies

Supplementary files

Article information

Article type
Paper
Submitted
09 دی 1398
Accepted
06 اسفند 1398
First published
07 اسفند 1398

Green Chem., 2020,22, 2225-2233

Hybrid alginate–protein cryogel beads: efficient and sustainable bio-based materials to purify immunoglobulin G antibodies

M. Sharma, A. P. M. Tavares, J. C. F. Nunes, N. Singh, D. Mondal, M. C. Neves, K. Prasad and M. G. Freire, Green Chem., 2020, 22, 2225 DOI: 10.1039/C9GC04449C

To request permission to reproduce material from this article, please go to the Copyright Clearance Center request page.

If you are an author contributing to an RSC publication, you do not need to request permission provided correct acknowledgement is given.

If you are the author of this article, you do not need to request permission to reproduce figures and diagrams provided correct acknowledgement is given. If you want to reproduce the whole article in a third-party publication (excluding your thesis/dissertation for which permission is not required) please go to the Copyright Clearance Center request page.

Read more about how to correctly acknowledge RSC content.

Social activity

Spotlight

Advertisements