Purification of a fungal cutinase by adsorptive bubble separation: A statistical approach

Nowadays, the use of enzymes for the pharmaceutical, cosmetic or food industry steadily increases. Although the specification and production of enzymes are steadily enlarged, the downstream processing strategies lag behind. Thus, the development or improvement of enzyme purification methods to efficient and competitive techniques is a main issue. Adsorptive bubble separation e.g. foam fractionation represents such a improvable separation process. In this study, foam fractionation was used to separate an extracellular esterase from submerged cultures of the basidiomycete Coprinopsis cinerea. Parameters such as pH-value and column design affect the transport of active enzymes into the foam phase and thus the efficiency of the foam fractionation process. The influence and interactions of various parameters regarding the performance of the foam fractionation process were analyzed using Design of Experiments (DoE). The use of Design of Experiments allowed a fast identification of impact parameters and a direct optimization of the foam fractionation process.

► Foam fractionation with real culture broth.
► Design of Experiments used to determine influencing parameters.
► Target enzyme cutinase efficiently separated.
► Foam fractionation could be tailored to different separation requirements.