Biopharmaceuticals are medical drugs produced using biotechnology and, in many cases, they are the unique option in the treatment of particular diseases.
Amongst biopharmaceuticals, monoclonal antibodies (laboratory-produced molecules engineered to serve as substitute antibodies) are widely applied for therapeutic purposes, namely in vaccination and immunization, but also in the treatment of oncologic, autoimmune, cardiovascular, inflammatory and neurological diseases.
Despite all advantages of monoclonal antibodies, some challenges limit their widespread used. For instance, the high quantities of pure of monoclonal antibodies required and their extremely high manufacturing costs. Therefore, the development of cost-effective, sustainable and biocompatible purification strategies for monoclonal antibodies is in high demand to decrease the associated economic, environmental and health burdens.
Researchers from the University of Aveiro developed novel sustainable strategies, based on ionic liquids, for the recovery and purification of monoclonal antibodies.
The authors of this study produced novel aqueous biphasic systems composed of glycine-betaine analogues ionic liquids*. Then, they evaluated the performance of these systems, as well as hybrid processes combining ultrafiltration, as alternative strategies for the purification and recovery of particular monoclonal antibodies (called anti-interleukin-8 monoclonal antibodies), which are specific therapeutics in the treatment of inflammatory diseases.
The researchers observed that some of these strategies allowed the recovery of monoclonal antibodies for biopharmaceutical formulation and the biological activity of the purified biopharmaceuticals was confirmed.
One more advantage of these new strategies is the ability to reuse the solvent used, making the entire process promising and sustainable for the recovery and purification of monoclonal antibodies.
*Ionic liquid are solvents that differ from molecular solvents (composed of only neutral molecules) and salt solutions (composed of ions and molecules) because they consist entirely of ions.
References:
E. V. Capela, A. Santiago, A. F. Rufino, A. P. M. Tavares, M. M. Pereira, A. MOHAMADOU, M. R. Aires-Barros, J. A. P. Coutinho, A. Azevedo and M. G. Freire, Green Chem., 2019, DOI: 10.1039/C9GC02733E.
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