Membrane based ion-exchange (IEX) and hydrophobic interaction chromatography (HIC) for protein purification is often used to remove impurities and aggregates operated under the flow-through mode. IEX and HIC are also limited by capacity and recovery when operated under bind-and-elute mode for the fractionation of proteins. Electrospun nanofibrous membrane is characterized by its high surface area to volume ratio and high permeability. Here tertiary amine ligands are grafted onto the electrospun polysulfone (PSf) and polyacrylonitrile (PAN) membrane substrates using UV-initiated polymerization. Static and dynamic binding capacities for model protein bovine serum albumin (BSA) were determined under appropriate bind and elute buffer conditions. Static and dynamic binding capacities in the order of ~100 mg/mL were obtained for the functionalized electrospun PAN membranes whereas these values reached ~200 mg/mL for the functionalized electrospun PSf membranes. Protein recovery of over 96% was obtained for PAN-based membranes. However, it is only 56% for PSf-based membranes. Our work indicates that surface modification of electrospun membranes by grafting polymeric ligands can enhance protein adsorption due to increased surface area-to-volume ratio.
Keywords: UV-initiated polymerization; anion exchange; electrospun membrane; protein purification.