Liquid chromatography of recombinant proteins and protein drugs

Many recombinant proteins (rPRTs) have a high bioactivity and some of them may eventually be classified as drugs beneficial to human health, recombinant human protein drugs (rPDs). rPDs are a high-technology product with all the associated economic benefits, therefore the liquid chromatography (LC) of rPRT is different from that of proteins isolated in laboratory scale for purely research purposes. The design of a purification scheme for an rPRT depends on the intended function of the purified rPRT, as a pure sample for research in small scale, or as a product for industrial production. This review paper mainly deals with the latter instance, producing rPD at a large scale. Pharmaceutical economics is considered not only for each step of purification, but also the whole production process. This strategy restricts the content of this review paper to the factors affecting the optimization source, the character of rPRT in up-stream technology and the purification of the rPRT in down-stream production. In the latter instance, the purification step is required to be as efficient as possible and LC is the core of the refined purification method, which is either a single LC method or combination of LC methods, sometimes, it may be a combination of LC and other non-LC separation methods comprising an optimized purification technology. Here some typical examples of rPRT purification at the large scale, recent developments, such as protein folding liquid chromatography, short column chromatography, and new packing material and column techniques are introduced.