Fungal mycelium—the source of chitosan for chromatography

Mycelium of the mold Aspergillus niger was used as a raw material for the preparation of microbial chitosan. Aspergillus niger, the mold used for the production of citric acid, contains approx. 15% of chitin, which can be separated, transformed into chitosan, and used as a sorbent for chromatography. The main advantage of this material in comparison with krill chitosan is the uniformity of particle size leading to the low back-pressure in the column. The other advantage is the fact, that original fibrous structure of mycelial pellets could be stabilized before chitosan preparation by cross-linking with glutaraldehyde. The product prepared by this way – crosslinked chitosan of uniform particle size, is highly porous, with high water regain and, as a result, low sedimentation velocity. Low sedimentation velocity is not disadvantage in chromatographic application, but may form some problems in batchwise operation. Chitosan as a polymer of glucosamine is anion exchanger in nature and the chromatographic properties of this anion exchanger was demonstrated by the chromatography of bovine blood plasma, glucose oxidase, and chicken pepsinogen. In all cases, the course of chromatography on crosslinked chitosan was compared with the chromatography on MONO Q (bovine blood plasma) or DEAE-cellulose (glucose oxidase, chicken pepsinogen) under the same protocol.