Protein–Nanocellulose Interactions in Paper Filters for Advanced Separation Applications

Abstract

Protein-based pharmaceutics are widely explored for healthcare applications, and 6 out of 10 best-selling drugs today are biologicals. The goal of this work was to evaluate the protein nanocellulose interactions in paper filter for advanced separation applications such as virus removal filtration and bioprocessing. The protein recovery was measured for bovine serum albumin (BSA), γ-globulin, and lysozyme using biuret total protein reagent and polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis (PAGE), and the throughput was characterized in terms of flux values from fixed volume filtrations at various protein concentrations and under worst-case experimental conditions. The affinity of cellulose to bind various proteins, such as BSA, lysozyme, γ-globulin, and human IgG was quantified using a quartz crystal microbalance (QCMB) by developing a new method of fixing the cellulose fibers to the electrode surface without cellulose dissolution-precipitation. It was shown that the mille-feuille filter exhibits high protein recovery, that is, ∼99% for both BSA and lysozyme. However, γ-globulin does not pass through the membrane due to its large size (i.e., >180 kDa). The PAGE data show no substantial change in the amount of dimers and trimers before and after filtration. QCMB analysis suggests a low affinity between the nanocellulose surface and proteins. The nanocellulose-based filter exhibits desirable inertness as a filtering material intended for protein purification.

Versatile Application of Nanocellulose: From Industry to Skin Tissue Engineering and Wound Healing

“…Algae as sources of nanocellulose are Cladophora [37,38,83,84,85,86,87] and Cystoseria myrica [88]. Nanocellulose materials derived from Cladophora have been tested mainly for their potential biomedical applications in terms of the presence of impurities, such as heavy metals, glucans, and endotoxins [85].…”

Bacterial Nanocellulose from Side-Streams of Kombucha Beverages Production: Preparation and Physical-Chemical Properties

“…These properties make NC very interesting for various applications in multiple domains. In the biomedical and pharmaceutical fields NC can be used for wound dressing, virus-removal filters, drug-delivery systems, scaffolds, tissue regeneration, or bioprinting [1,5,6,7,8,9,10]. In food industry, NC can be used as functional food ingredient, food stabilizer, or as nanofiller in nanocomposites with gas-barrier properties for food packaging [1,11,12,13,14].…”

Significance of Brownian Motion for Nanoparticle and Virus Capture in Nanocellulose-Based Filter Paper

“…Virus removal capacity of the filter paper was further reported for various model viruses, including a log 10 reduction rate (LRV) >5 for the worst-case small size model parvovirus, i.e., minute virus of mice (MVM; 18–20 nm) [19,22,23,24]. Protein throughput of the filter paper showed high recovery and inertness for bovine serum albumin (BSA, MW 66 kDa) and lysozyme (14 kDa), whereas γ-globulin (MW > 175 kDa) was not able to pass through the filter due to its large size [25]. High virus removal rates and high protein recovery in combination with a simple manufacturing process from a readily available, sustainable material makes studying the virus removal mechanisms in these filters of interest [26].…”