Protein separation using affinity-based reversed micelles

Reversed micellar two-phase extraction is a developing technique for protein separation. Introduction of an affinity ligand is considered to be an effective approach to increase the selectivity and capacity of reversed micelles. In this article, Cibacron Blue F3G-A (CB) as an affinity ligand was immobilized to reversed micelles composed of soybean lecithin by a two-phase reaction. The affinity partitioning of lysozyme and bovine serum albumin (BSA) to the CB-lecithin micelles was studied. Formation of mixed micelles by additionally introducing a nonionic surfactant, Tween 85, to the CB-lecithin micelles was effective to increase the solubilization of lysozyme due to the increase of W0 (water/surfactant molar ratio)/micellar size. The partitioning isotherms of lysozyme to the CB-lecithin micelles with and without Tween 85 were expressed by the Langmuir equation. The dissociation constants in the Langmuir equation decreased on addition of Tween 85, indicating the increase of the effectiveness of lysozyme binding to the immobilized CB. On addition of 20 g/L Tween 85 to 50 g/L lecithin/hexane micellar phase containing 0.1 mmol/L CB, the extraction capacity for lysozyme could be increased by 42%. Moreover, the CB-lecithin micelles with or without Tween 85 showed significant size exclusion for BSA due to its high molecular weight. Thus, lysozyme and BSA were separated from artificial solutions containing the two proteins. In addition, the affinity-based reversed micellar phase containing Tween 85 was recycled three times for lysozyme purification from crude egg-white solutions. Lysozyme purity increased by 16-18-fold, reaching 60-70% in the recycled use.