In order to assist the refolding
of recombinant nitrilase inclusion
bodies, a series of thermoresponsive media were prepared by grafting
poly(
N
-isopropylacrylamide-
co
-butyl-methacrylate)
[P(NIPAM-
co
-BMA)] brushes onto PS microspheres with
various particles and pore sizes
via
an atom transfer
radical polymerization (ATRP) method. The effects of particle sizes,
pore sizes, and brush grafting amounts of thermoresponsive microspheres
on nitrilase refolding were investigated preliminarily. The results
showed that the PS-P(NIPAM-
co
-BMA) microspheres with
the medium particle size (74 μm), gigapore size (320 nm), and
high grafting amount (35.6 mg/m
2
) were the most effective
candidates. The final nitrilase activity yield could be up to 84.5%
with a high initial protein concentration (1 mg/mL) at 30 °C,
which was 52.5% higher than that of a simple dilution refolding method
at the initial protein concentration (0.1 mg/mL). After the refolding
process, the PS-P(NIPAM-
co
-BMA) microspheres can
be easily separated by self-precipitation, and the activity yield
of nitrilase still reached 74.5% after being reused for five batches.
These results indicated that the thermoresponsive gigaporous medium
was an ideal alternative as an artificial chaperone.
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