Aqueous two-phase system strategies for the recovery of proteins from plants

The increasing interest of the biopharmaceutical industry to exploit plants as a commercially viable production system is demanding the development of new strategies to maximize product recovery. Aqueous two-phase systems (ATPSs) are a primary recovery technique that has shown great potential for the efficient extraction and purification of biological products. The evaluation of different system parameters upon the partitioning behavior can provide the conditions that favor the concentration of contaminants and the desired target protein in opposite phases. The protocols described provide the basic strategy to explore the use of ATPS for the isolation and partial purification of native and recombinant proteins expressed in plants.