Extraction of proteins with ionic liquid aqueous two-phase system based on guanidine ionic liquid

Eight kinds of green ionic liquids were synthesized, and an ionic liquid aqueous two-phase system (ILATPS) based on 1,1,3,3-tetramethylguandine acrylate (TMGA) guanidine ionic liquid was first time studied for the extraction of proteins. Single factor experiments proved that the extraction efficiency of bovine serum albumin (BSA) was influenced by the mass of IL, K2HPO4 and BSA, also related to the separation time and temperature. The optimum conditions were determined through orthogonal experiment by the five factors described above. The results showed that under the optimum conditions, the extraction efficiency could reach up to 99.6243%. The relative standard deviations (RSD) of extraction efficiencies in precision experiment, repeatability experiment and stability experiment were 0.8156% (n=5), 1.6173% (n=5) and 1.6292% (n=5), respectively. UV-vis and FT-IR spectra confirmed that there were no chemical interactions between BSA and ionic liquid in the extraction process, and the conformation of the protein was not changed after extraction. The conductivity, DLS and TEM were combined to investigate the microstructure of the top phase and the possible mechanism for the extraction. The results showed that hydrophobic interaction, hydrogen bonding interaction and the salt out effect played important roles in the transferring process, and the aggregation and embrace phenomenon was the main driving force for the separation. All these results proved that guanidine ionic liquid-based ATPSs have the potential to offer new possibility in the extraction of proteins.