Introduction: Human serum albumin (HSA) is a monomeric multi-domain protein that possesses an extraordinary binding capacity. It plays an important role in storing and transporting endogenous substances, metabolites, and drugs throughout the human circulatory system. Clinically, HSA is used to treat a variety of diseases such as hypovolemia, shock, burns, hemorrhage, and trauma in critically ill patients. Pharmaceutical-grade HSA contains the stabilizers sodium caprylate and N-acetyltryptophanate to protect the protein from oxidative stress and to stabilize it for heat treatment which is applied for virus inactivation.
Material and methods: The aim of this study was to determine if the two stabilizers can be depleted by adsorbent techniques. Several, adsorbents, some of them are in clinical use, were tested in batch and in a dynamic setup for their ability to remove the stabilizers. Furthermore, the removal of the stabilizers was tested using a pediatric high flux dialyzer.
Results: The outcome of this study shows that activated charcoal based adsorbents are more effective in removal of N-acetylthryptophanate, whereas polystyrene based adsorbents are better for the removal of caprylate from HSA solutions. An adsorbent cartridge which contains a mix of activated charcoal and polystyrene based material could be used to remove both stabilizers effectively. After 4 hours treatment with a high flux dialyzer, N-acetyltryptophanate was totally removed whereas 20% of caprylate remained in the HSA solution.