Selective Capture and Recovery of Monoclonal Antibodies by Self-Assembling Supramolecular Polymers of High Affinity for Protein Binding
Yi Li, Lye Lin Lock, Jason C. Mills, Ben S. Ou, Marina Morrow, David Stern, Han Wang, Caleb F. Anderson, Xuankuo Xu, Sanchayita Ghose, Zheng Jian Li, Honggang Cui
Abstract
The separation and purification of therapeutic proteins from their biological resources pose a great limitation for industrial manufacturing of biologics in an efficient and cost-effective manner. We report here a supramolecular polymeric system that can undergo multiple reversible processes for efficient capture, precipitation, and recovery of monoclonal antibodies (mAbs). These supramolecular polymers, namely immunofibers (IFs), are formed by coassembly of a mAb-binding peptide amphiphile with a rationally designed filler molecule of varying stoichiometric ratios. Under the optimized conditions, IFs can specifically capture mAbs with a precipitation yield greater than 99%, leading to an overall mAb recovery yield of 94%. We also demonstrated the feasibility of capturing and recovering two mAbs from clarified cell culture harvest. These results showcase the promising potential of peptide-based supramolecular polymers as reversible affinity precipitants for mAb purification.