Continuous Affinity–Recycle Extraction: A Novel Protein Separation Technique

A novel method for using affinity purification and membrane filtration for the continuous separation of proteins is described. Continuous affinity–recycle extraction (CARE) is an efficient, easily controlled, scaleable purification scheme, which may offer substantial cost savings in fermentation downstream processing. The feasibility of the CARE process was tested using β–galactosidase produced by E. coli and PABTG–agarose affinity gel. The resolving power and the physical configuration of this system allows its use as both a final and a front end purification step.