Genetic engineering to enhance the selectivity of protein separations

The ability to recover and purify natural and recombinant proteins, and the costs of doing so remain a major task in introducing the potential products of biotechnology. The bases for separation range from specific binding onto tailored reagents to solubility and partitioning behavior governed by a mixed bag of size, charge, and hydrophobicity. In most cases, a combination of methods is used in sequence, and improvements in the selectivity at an early stage can enhance the effectiveness of subsequent (and usually more costly) steps. Genetic engineering provides a means of improving the selectivity within the context of existing separation methods. By this strategy, improvements in selectivity are sought by bestowing a distinctive property on the protein of interest. The primary sequence of amino acids is altered, such that the protein can be selectively removed from other components of the multicomponent mixture in which such products are commonly found. In this article, the range of these “distinctive properties” and their pairing with various separation methods will be reviewed. Specific examples from our work, in which a distinctive charge is provided via a polypeptide “purification” fusion tail, will be discussed. Separation methods we have used with these fusion proteins are precipitation, two-phase aqueous extraction, reversed micellar extraction, and ion exchange using both resins and membranes.     

FT–IR microspectroscopy study of blends of ester functionalized ethylene–propylene copolymer with (vinylidene fluoride-hexafluoropropene) elastomer

An ethylene—propylene (EPR) copolymer functionalized with (1,2-dicarboethoxy)ethyl groups has been blended with a vinylidene fluoride—hexafluropropene elastomer (NML). The existence of intermolecular interactions involving mainly the carbonyl groups of the side chains of the functionalized copolymer and the methylene hydrogens of the fluoroelastomer through hydrogen bonding was shown by means of FT—IR spectroscopy. The structure and composition of some microdomains in the mixture was examined by means of FT—IR microspectroscopy.     

The effect of ph and gas composition on the bubble fractionation of proteins

Studies were conducted to establish the effect of the variation of environmental factors on the separation occurring in protein systems, resulting from bubble fractionation in a bioreactor. The measure of separation was selected to be the separation ratio. This is defined to be the ratio of either the top or the middle position concentration in the vessel to the bottom concentration of the vessel. Invertase and α-amylase were the two “model” enzymes considered. It was observed that, under certain conditions, i.e., a combination of the nature of the sparging gas and the medium pH, varying degrees of protein separation were achieved. The pH of the system dramatically influenced the separation. It was found that the best separation occurred at a certain pH, assumed to be at or close to thepI of the protein in question. Furthermore, it was observed that systems sparged with CO₂ exhibited greater separation than systems sparged with air. In fact, in the case of invertase, almost threefold separation was observed at the top port when the solution was sparged with CO₂.     

Chromatographic separation of some metal ions on NTA-impregnated thin-layer plates

Summary NTA (nitrilo triacetic acid) has been used as an impregnating agent for an efficient TLC separation of twelve metal ions, using a mixture of 5% aq ammonia, ethanol acetone and acetic acid as the solvent system and dithizone (0.5% in chloroform) for visualization.     

四种溴代甲苯异构体的质谱区分

本工作用四种较新的质谱技术(碰撞诱导解离(CID),电荷剥离(CS),电荷分离(CSe),电子捕获诱导解离(ECID)谱研究了邻、间、对溴甲苯和溴化苄四种异构体。四种技术在一定程度上都可区分这些异构体。其中比较四种异构体ECID谱中ECID峰的相对强度可得到满意的区分效果。     

聚酰亚胺/SiO2杂化膜的制备、表征和气体渗透性能

采用溶胶凝胶法,在以TiO2为过渡层的硅藻土-莫来石陶瓷膜管基底上,制备了组分不同的聚酰亚胺/SiO2杂化膜。聚酰亚胺是利用4,4′-六氟亚异丙基邻苯二甲酸酐、2,4,6-三甲基-1,3-苯二胺和3,5-二氨基苯甲酸在溶液中进行亚胺化完成的。采用FT-IR、TG/DTA、DSC、SEM、BET和气体渗透测定对膜进行了表征和测试。结果表明,聚酰亚胺通过支链上的羧酸基和SiO2相键连织构成了具有规则孔道的空间网状结构,并且随着SiO2含量的增加孔径逐渐减小;杂化膜具有较高的热稳定性和有机无机兼容性;相对于聚酰亚胺膜,杂化膜对H2、CO2和H2O与N2相比较具有较高的分离性,SiO2含量为25(wt)%的杂化膜对H2/N2、CO2/N2和H2O/N2的分离因子分别达到55.9、31.1和42.8。     

Effect of operating parameters on selective separation of heavy metals from binary mixtures via polymer enhanced ultrafiltration

Performance of continuous polymer enhanced ultrafiltration (PEUF) method was investigated for removal of mercury and cadmium from binary mixtures. This method includes the addition of polyethyleneimine (PEI) as a water soluble polymer to bind the metals, which was followed by ultrafiltration operation performed on both laboratory and pilot scale systems. The influence of various operating parameters such as temperature, metal/polymer ratio, presence of calcium ions and pH on retention of metals and permeate flux was investigated. To investigate the possibility of selective separation of mercury and cadmium, experiments were conducted for binary solutions at different pH and loading ratios. It was seen that the retention of mercury decreased and permeate flux increased when the temperature increased. The increased pH and decreased metal/polymer ratio, loading (L), resulted in higher retention of both metals. Shapes of retention vs. pH or L curves were very similar for both metals. Retentions stay almost constant at a value very close to unity until a critical L or pH value was reached, then, R decreases almost linearly with L or pH. However, retention of cadmium was affected more than that of mercury as the pH decreased and L increased. This leads to the selective separation of mercury and cadmium. At low pH values (about 5) and at high L values (about 0.3), mercury was removed by ultrafiltration operation while almost all cadmium passed through the membrane. At pH 5.5 and cadmium/polymer ratio about 0.35 and mercury/polymer ratio about 0.39, the highest separation factor was obtained as 49.     

Synthesis of Polyacrylaminothiourea Chelating Fiber and Properties of Concentration and Separation of Trace Noble Metal Ions from Samples

A novel polyacrylaminothiourea chelating fiber was synthesized simply and rapidly from nitrilon (an acrylonitrile-based synthetic fiber), which was applied to preconcentrate and separate of trace amount of Au(Ⅲ）,Pt(Ⅳ）,Pd(Ⅳ） and Ir (Ⅳ） ions from solution of samples.The analyzed ions can be quantitatively concentrated by the fiber up to a flow rate of 20.0mL/min at pH2, and can also be desorbed with 15 mL of 4mol/L HCl 3% thiourea from the fiber column with recoveries of 96.5%-100%.The chelating fiber can be reused for ten times,the recoveries of these ions are still over 92%,and hundred to thousand times of excess of Fe(Ⅲ）,Al（Ⅲ）,Ca(Ⅱ），Mg（Ⅱ）,Ni(Ⅱ）,Mn（Ⅱ),Cu(Ⅱ），Zn(Ⅱ），and Cd(Ⅱ） cause no interference on the determination of the analyzed ions by inductively-coupled plasma atomic emission spectrometry (ICP-AES).The static saturation adsorption capacities of the fiber for the analytes are in the range of 1.15-2.80mmol/g.The relative standard deviations for the determination of 20.0ng/mL each of Au(Ⅲ）,Pt(Ⅳ）,Pd(Ⅳ）and Ir(Ⅳ） are in the range of 0.7%-3.0%.The recoveries for test from standard additions to real solution samples are between 96% and 100%.The concentration of each ion in powder sample detected by the method is in good agreement with the certified value.     

化学光谱法测定5N氧化钆中14个稀土杂质元素

报道了化学光谱法测定５Ｎ高纯氧化钆中１４个稀土杂质元素，在Ｐ５０７萃淋树脂色层柱上分离氧化钆中稀土杂质元素，分别采用定量分离Ｌａ－Ｓｍ及Ｔｂ－Ｌｕ＋Ｙ和部份分离Ｅｕ的方法，并相应地采用碳粉吸附法和碳粉粉末法进行光谱测定。分离时间为３．５ｈ，测定下限为１．２μｇ／ｇ（ＲＥ）。     

纤维素衍生物手性固定相研究进展

本文从用作手性固定相的纤维素衍生物种类、纤维素衍生物手性固定相制备方法及其在高效液相色谱中的应用三个方面介绍了国内外近年来的研究进展，并展望了该领域今后的研究方向。