Phase system selection with fractional factorial design for purification of recombinant cyanovirin-N from a hydroponic culture medium using centrifugal partition chromatography

Centrifugal partition chromatography (CPC) with an aqueous two-phase system (ATPS) was used to purify recombinant cyanovirin-N (CV-N) from other proteins which were co-secreted into a hydroponic plant medium in a rhizosecretion process. To achieve satisfactory protein concentration, the purification was preceded by ultrafiltration performed on a 5 kDa filter. ATPS, because of their gentle nature, were selected as the phase system for CPC. A systematic phase system selection was applied. This involved studying the effect of seven parameters of ATPS: polymer type, salt type, the polymer and salt concentration, the polymer molecular weight, pH, and presence of two additional salts; NaCl and NaClO4, which all together gave 320 combinations. design of experiment (DoE) software allowed the reduction of this number to 46. Having tested partitioning of cyanovirin-N and impurities in 46 ATPS, the three best potential phase systems generated by the programme were then tested on the CPC. Out of these three, 13/13% PEG4000 sodium phosphate, pH 3.0, proved to be most effective phase system in the purification of cyanovirin-N, judged by ELISA and SDS-PAGE analysis, as it eliminated most of the impurities from the final cyanovirin-N preparation.