Purification of Proteins with Aqueous Two-Phase Solvent Systems by Countercurrent Chromatography

Abstract

Aqueous polymer phase systems, introduced by Albertsson¹ in the 1950s, have been used for partitioning a variety of macromolecules and cell particles which include proteins,^2-6 nucleic acid,^7-10 cell organelles,¹¹ viruse,^12,13 bacterial cells,^14,15 etc. Using these solvent systems, several different approaches have been made for performing purification of biological samples, such as single step partitioning,¹ repetitive batch extraction, countercurrent distribution (CCD)^16,17 and countercurrent chromatography (CCC).^18-21 Among these techniques, CCC is considered to be most effective in terms of partition efficiency and separation times.