High-performance purification of gelsolin from plasma using anion-exchange porous hollow-fiber membrane

Gelsolin was purified from bovine plasma using an anion-exchange porous hollow-fiber membrane. The anion-change porous hollow-fiber membrane was prepared by radiation-induced graft polymerization of an epoxy-group-containing monomer, glycidyl methacrylate, and subsequent chemical modifications. Some of the epoxy groups of the polymer chain grafted onto the pore surface were converted into diethylamino groups, and the remaining epoxy groups were converted into 2-hydroxyethylamino groups. First, a gelsolin-containing dialyzed protein solution, prepared by pretreatments of ammonium sulfate precipitation and dialysis of plasma, was forced to permeate through the pores of an anion-exchange porous hollow-fiber membrane. Various proteins including gelsolin were adsorbed onto the anion-exchange polymer brush at a high rate with negligible diffusional mass-transfer resistance. Second, adsorbed gelsolin was specifically eluted by permeating 2 mM calcium chloride. The amount of recovered gelsolin was 0.1 mg per 1 mL of plasma. Third, the remaining adsorbed proteins were quantitatively eluted with 1 M sodium chloride, leading to a constant amount of recovered gelsolin during four cycles of purification. The total time required for gelsolin purification from 30 mL of bovine plasma was 11 h, during which the time for selective adsorption of various proteins and affinity elution of gelsolin using the anion-exchange porous hollow-fiber membrane was 20 min.