A comprehensive review on staphylococcal protein A (SpA): Its production and applications

Abstract The Staphylococcus aureus protein A (SpA) can be obtained through the culture of wild‐type S. aureus and also as a recombinant protein in safe bacterial hosts. Several methods have been used to purify SpA among which ion‐exchange chromatography, affinity chromatography, gel filtration, and per aqueous liquid chromatography (PALC) are common. SpA has a wide range of biochemical, biotechnological, and medical applications and is most commonly used in test methods such as immunoprecipitation, enzyme‐linked immunosorbent assay, and Western blotting. SpA has also been widely utilized in pharmaceutical applications to bind to immune complexes and serum immunoglobulins. SpA also directly binds to the B‐cells preventing initiation of infectious diseases as well as having a role in the development of various autoimmune diseases. This review considers different applications of SpA in biotechnology and its novel clinical application for effective treatment of autoimmune diseases. It also discusses various strategies for expression and purification of the SpA including types of column chromatography that are commonly used in protein purification and developing SpA surface display technologies. Finally, this review highlights the potential and novel applications of SpA immobilization, SpA typing, protein engineering for further development of immunological and biochemical research, and also application of SpA as a diagnostic biosensor.