[Hydrophobic membrane chromatography for fast purification of biological macromolecules]

Cellulose membrane bonded with four commonly used hydrophobic groups, octyl, butyl, phenyl and polyethylene glycol was first investigated for their binding and purification characteristics of protein and enzyme with octyl- and phenyl-Sepharose CL-4 B as controls. Hydrophobic membranes bound BSA effectively by hydrophobic interaction in high salt solution. Their binding capacities were not notably affected by significantly increasing the flow mass rate or decreasing the mass concentration of protein solution, but were much lower than those of octyl- and phenyl-Sepharose CL-4B. 11.8 fold of purification with an approximately 100% recovery of bovine liver catalase was achieved by step gradient elution on the phenyl cellulose membrane cartridge in a single step in only ten mins or a little more. Increase of the flow mass rate had no effect on the purification of catalase, however, the processing time was shortened greatly. Hydrophobic membrane chromatography here reported exibits a potential of fast processing of the protein solution in large volume with low mass concentration of the target protein, such as genetic engineering culture solution.