CHARACTERIZATION AND APPLICATION OF NEW MACROPOROUS MEMBRANE ION-EXCHANGERS

A new ready-to-use unit for high-performance membrane chromatography h as been characterized. Its dynamic capacity, resolving power and prote in recovery were measured at different flow-rates. The binding capacit y was 0.5-2 mg/cm(2) with a 95% recovery at 10 ml/min irrespective of the protein concentration up to 10 mg/ml. For very-high flow-rates (50 and 100 ml/min) the recovery was 90% and 70%. At these flow-rates, th e maximum back-pressure was about 0.1 MPa and was independent of the f iltration area. By increasing the filtration area, a proportional capa city increase was obtained, indicating an easy scale-up. High flow-rat es had only a slight effect on resolution. This new adsorber was able to purify IgM from supernatant of cell culture of a human hybridoma in less than 8 min with a high degree of purity (95%). (C) 1998 Elsevier Science B.V.