A new process for the separation and purification of egg yolk antibodies

• Main Author: Charter, Edward
• Language: English
• Published: 2008
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/2429/1917

A three stage process was developed for the separation of an antibody (IgY) from industrially separated chicken egg yolk. This included aqueous extraction of the water soluble fraction (WSF) from the yolk by dilution with distilled water and pH adjustment, separation of IgY from the WSF using a cation exchange column in an automated chromatography system, and finally purification of IgY using precipitation with sodium sulphate. The overall recovery of the process was approximately 50%, and the purity 95% or greater depending on the number of precipitation steps used. An automated liquid chromatography system was developed to allow efficient study of various chromatographic media for the separation of the antibody. Analysis of breakthrough curves indicates that superficial velocity is the governing parameter in the binding of IgY to the cation exchanger. Results of a pilot scale experiment involving the application of 46.5 litres of WSF containing approximately 0.8 mg/ml IgY to a 1500 nil column are presented.