Unchained Labs eBook - 23

Unleash your biologic * Kick manual buffer exchange to the curb

are usually manual, each with different drawbacks. Standard methods
involve dialysis cassettes or a tangential flow filtration (TFF) system,
followed by a concentration step with a centrifugal device, or a centrifugal
device for the entire process. Dialysis is the less stressful way to
exchange the protein but has major drawbacks; it is slow, it requires
massive amounts of buffer, and does not provide any level of protein
concentration or volume control. After dialysis, a centrifugal device is
usually still required to concentrate back to the target volume. These
devices require a lot of trips back and forth to the centrifuge, while still
proving difficult to fully control the final concentration and volume. It
becomes especially difficult as protein concentrations increase, and
there is greater risk of gelation or losing protein to the membrane. Other
methods, such as desalting columns are only suited for low concentration samples in low ionic buffers, and mass recoveries are usually lower
than alternative methods.
"Automated buffer exchange provides an advantage during early
formulation screening and strategic DOE studies," says Jared
Trefethen, Sr. Staff Development Scientist at Bayer. "We can
accomplish twice the work in the given timeframe compared to
the traditional buffer exchange methods." Automation can
enhance protein buffer exchange by several aspects:
* Reduces the number of manual intervention steps
* Improves protein quality by causing less aggregation and material loss
* Achieves a final target concentration and volume
23

GENengnews.com

Figure 1. Junior, an automated
plate-based buffer exchange
system.

Figure 2. Grunt, an automated,
filtration cup-based buffer
exchange system.

Unchained Labs offers two different formats for automated
buffer exchange: Junior, a 96-well plate format for smallvolume buffer exchanges (Figure 1) and Grunt, a larger
format to exchange protein into 12 different formulations
simultaneously (Figure 2).

https://www.unchainedlabs.com/buffer-exchange/ https://www.unchainedlabs.com/grunt/ http://GENengnews.com

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