Development of a chromatographic process for large-scale purification of staphylococcal enterotoxin B

A process for large-scale purification of staphylococcal enterotoxin B (SEB) is presented. The process consists of three chromatographic steps. The first two steps are based on ion-exchange chromatography and the final one on gel filtration. Diluted culture supernatant (2000 dm3) with a SEB content of 0.4 mg dm-3 were processed and purified. SEB was obtained in 1.5 dm3 of 0.1 mol dm-3 ammonium hydrogen carbonate buffer, pH 8.0. The final product produced a single band on SDS polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis and a single peak when subjected to analytical gel filtration. The overall recovery was 74%.