Protein Purification: An Overview

Biological macromolecules such as proteins constitute an important class of products in the food, biotechnology, pharmaceutical, and cosmetics industries. The growing need to develop efficient and rapid protein purification methods is driving research and growth in this area. Advances and progress in the methods and techniques of protein purification have been such that one can reasonably expect that any protein of a given order of stability may be purified to currently acceptable standards of homogeneity. However, protein production cost remains extremely high, with downstream processing constituting a substantial proportion of the overall cost. Understanding of the methods and optimization of experimental conditions have become critical to the manufacturing industry in order to minimize production costs while satisfying all regulatory requirements. New purification protocols exploiting specific, effective, and robust methods and materials are expected to guide the future of the protein purification area.