Continuous separation of multicomponent protein mixtures by annular displacement chromatography

Displacement chromatography is a predominantly nonlinear mode of chromatography, which has certain advantages over the elution mode for preparative bioseparations. Whereas continuous production (and separation) processes have their theoretical benefits in this context, protein displacement chromatography has up to now only been performed in the batch mode. In this contribution, we demonstrate that the principle of continuous annular chromatography can be adapted to displacement chromatography. Separations of up to three standard proteins (two whey proteins, soybean trypsin inhibitor) were developed and optimized using a small (4 x 250 mm) batch column. These separations were subsequently transferred directly to the continuous system (500-mL column). Separations of similar quality in terms of final product purity and recovery yield were obtained using the continuous system.