Supermacroporous cryogel matrix for integrated protein isolation: Immobilized metal affinity chromatographic purification of urokinase from cell culture broth of a human kidney cell line

A new type of supermacroporous, monolithic, cryogel affinity adsorbent was developed, allowing the specific capture of urokinase from conditioned media of human fibrosarcoma cell line HT1080. The affinity adsorbent was designed with the objective of using it as a capture column in an integrated perfusion/protein separation bioreactor setup. A comparative study between the utility of this novel cryogel based matrix and the conventional Sepharose based affinity matrix for the continuous capture of urokinase in an integrated bioreactor system was performed. Cu(II)-ion was coupled to epoxy activated polyacrylamide cryogel and Sepharose using iminodiacetic acid (IDA) as the chelating ligand. About 27-fold purification of urokinase from the conditioned culture media was achieved with Cu(II)-IDA-polyacrylamide cryogel column giving specific activity of about 814 Plough units (PU)/mg protein and enzyme yields of about 80%. High yields (95%) were obtained with Cu(II)-IDA-Sepharose column by virtue of its high binding capacity. However, the adsorbent showed lower selectivity as compared to cryogel matrix giving specific activity of 161 PU/mg protein and purification factor of 5.3. The high porosity, selectivity and reasonably good binding capacity of Cu(II)-IDA-polyacrylamide cryogel column make it a promising option for use as a protein capture column in integrated perfusion/separation processes. The urokinase peak pool from Cu(II)-IDA-polyacrylamide cryogel column could be further resolved into separate fractions for high and low molecular weight forms of urokinase by gel filtration chromatography on Sephacryl S-200. The selectivity of the cryogel based IMAC matrix for urokinase was found to be higher as compared to that of Cu(II)-IDA-Sepharose column.