Selective adsorption of small proteins on large-pore anion exchangers coated with medium size proteins

A new anion exchanger support has been designed for the selective adsorption of small proteins. This has been achieved activating an aminated support with glutaraldehyde and further coating the support surface with bovine serum albumin (BSA). In this support, "wells" are generated by two neighborhoods BSA molecules, on the bottom of those "wells" glutaraldehyde groups are exposed out ready to react with small molecules that have a size small enough to be accommodated between two BSA molecules on the pre-existing support. However, the BSA surface was not inert enough adsorbing many proteins, thereby reducing the selectivity of the system. A further solution was coating the immobilized BSA molecules with dextran, reducing the adsorption of protein on the BSA surface. This new matrix has been evaluated in the selective adsorption of the very small beta-lactoglobulins and alpha-lactalbumin from dairy whey, achieving the selective adsorption of both small proteins while other larger proteins from dairy whey remained in the supernatant. Moreover, a protein crude extract has been offered to the new matrix, and only small proteins could be adsorbed on the support (as probed by gel filtration). Thus this amino-glutaraldehyde-BSA-dextran-Sepharose is a matrix that may be used to selectively ionically adsorb proteins that were smaller than BSA (62 kDa). This strategy may be used for any other kind of adsorbing groups (chelating agents, boronic acid, etc.), or using proteins with different sizes to coat the support, designing tailor-made supports that may permit the fractioning of proteins following their sizes and by adsorption/desorption on different matrices.