Aqueous Methods for Extraction/Recovery of Macromolecules From Microorganisms of Atypical Environments: A Focus on Three Phase Partitioning

Downstream processing is a major cost in the production of macromolecules, including proteins and enzymes. Thus, development of efficient and economical downstream processing strategies has become an important area in microbiology, biochemistry and biotechnology. The trend is to develop protocols, which have fewer steps, do not require any preprocessing and have unit processes, which integrate well. This chapter deals with these aspects and explores one of the interesting aqueous separation methods, Three Phase Partitioning (TPP), as an emerging nonchromatography technique for the extraction and recovery of macromolecules from different biological sources. This chapter serves as a one-stop-reference by highlighting the application of TPP to purify macromolecules of interest and its potential use for studying extremophiles, mainly to prepare small quantities of molecules for early-stage exploratory research. TPP is proposed as a fast, one-step recovery tool to be used during screening of macromolecules from microorganisms of atypical environments as it can be easily used in downstream purification processes where it magnifies the advantages of the process. The chapter further summarizes the partitioning mechanisms of TPP, the main factors influencing the recovery process and also the variants and unique characteristics of TPP as an emerging elegant nonchromatographical tool for the separation and recovery of macromolecules from different sources, including fermentation broths and extremophile microorganisms.