Multi-column purification apparatus
Background: High throughput purification of proteins typically relies on expensive systems such as AKTAs. Manual purification without the use of these machines is possible but is low throughput and takes up space with multiple retort stands and racks of tubes to collect your purified fractions
What I needed to do: We needed to purify these many samples in the shortest time possible to test for their anti-viral activity
The problem: Gravity purification is low throughput and takes up space if purifying multiple proteins simultaneously.
The solution: Using the 96 well blocks to collect purified fractions, and polyprep columns to add our purification resin to, we designed a multi-column purification apparatus.
- This can hold 4 columns at once and purify 4 proteins/VHHs simultaneously.
- It is feasible to run 2x such purifications at the same time = 8 proteins/VHHs at once.
- It is also feasible to run 2 sets of these purifications per day = 16 proteins/VHHs per day.
This is a low cost, low footprint, high throughput method to purify proteins/VHHs in any lab.
We have published the application of this apparatus in Bioprotocols (https://bio-protocol.org/en/bpdetail?id=5682&type=0).
Below is an excerpt from the paper:
"To facilitate the parallel purification of many VHHs without the use of relatively expensive chromatography equipment, a custom multi-column purification apparatus (Figure 4) was designed and built"
