Production, recovery, and purification of recombinant 503 antigen of Leishmania infantum chagasi using expanded bed adsorption chromatography

Background Visceral leishmaniasis, a disease caused by Leishmania infantum chagasi, represents a major public health problem in many areas of the world. Despite the considerable effort, there is no effective and safe vaccine for human use [1]. Some authors have reported that as much as 50% of overall costs in the biotechnology industries are related to downstream processing. Thus, the development of new and economically advantageous purification methods is a challenge [2]. Expanded bed adsorption (EBA) is an innovative chromatography technology that allows the adsorption of target proteins directly from unclarified feedstock. EBA technology combines solidliquid separation with an adsorption step in a single-unit operation, aiming at increased overall yield, reduced operational time, and less capital investment and consumables [3,4]. Thus, the aim of this work was to purify the 503 antigen of Leishmania i. chagasi directly from crude feedstock using EBA chromatography.