The BEL monolith is a polymethacrylate adsorbent for the purification of large biomolecules with hydrodynamic
diameters between 100 and 2000 nm (Figure 1). The special
design of the BEL Monolith offers rapid convective transfer separation of large
biomolecules, in particular plasmid DNA (pDNA).;)
Figure 1: Structure of a polymethacrylate monolith
with large channels for convective mass transport
Why
BEL Monolith?
-
More tailored to target larger biomolecule (hydrodynamic100nm-
2000nm)
Increased
yields of plasmid DNA
Streamlined
processing of the down-steam pDNA purification process (See Figure 2). Ultimately, this
leads cost and time reduction for pDNA purification.
-
High purity of super-coiled DNA (>
90%) with the ability to meet Good Manufacturing Practices (cGMP) standards (see Figure 3).
-
Scaleable
and easily incorporated into existing facilities
-
At least 20 times more cost-effective than commercially available adsorbents that were compared (see Table 1).
-
Delivers superior performance across key performance indicators (see Table 2).
-
Reusable
and can be autoclaved
-
Faster and cheaper to produce than other adsorbents
-
Large average pore size tailored to pDNA results in lower pressure drop, which allows less energy to pump liquid and shear.
All this equates to huge savings in terms of time and money
(Source: Rapid
production of therapeutic plasmid DNA: A fundamental engineering approach to
vaccine crisis)
Figure 2: Streamline processing with the BEL
monolith.
A schematic diagram depicting that
the re-design of the downstream pDNA purification process with the monolith substantially reduces the filtration steps
required for pDNA purification.
By incorporating the BEL monolith into the
downstream process of pDNA production, the process is streamlined down from 3
to 1 purification step. Because this downstream purification process
accounts from 50-80% of the overall cost of production, the substantial amount
of time and money that can be saved using this technology can be easily conceived.
Traditionally, diffusion-limited membrane adsorbents
have been used for biomolecule processing, which are slow and have limited
capacity for purification of large molecules, such as pDNA, as they are more
suitable for smaller protein molecules. Dr Forde has overcome these
limitations by creating the BEL monolith, which relies on the convective flow
of solute through the adsorbent, as well as having the capacity to tailor pore
diameters to target large biomolecules with hydrodynamic diameters between
100-2000nm. As a consequence, significantly improved binding capacities and yields of pDNA are obtained using the monolithic technology. Importantly,
it has been proven that in one chromatography step using the monolith
technology (see Figure 2), we are able to produce greater than 90% purity
of high quality super coiled pDNA, which optimally meets regulatory
standards for use in human clinical trials.
(Source: Michael K. Danquah, Gareth M. Forde, The suitability of
DEAE-Cl active groups on customized poly(GMA-co-EDMA) continuous
stationary phase for fast enzyme-free isolation of plasmid DNA. Journal of
Chromatography B, February 2007).
Figure 3: Anion-Exchange Chromatographic purification
of plasmid DNA. Peaks 1,2,3,4 and 5 represent
loading, washing, RNA, protein and plasmid DNA, respectively. Using Gel
Electrophoresis techniques, no contaminant bands were visible,
supporting removal of all contaminants.
Table
1: Comparison of Costs for Commercial Adsorbents and the BEL Adsorbent.
(Source: Towards
the design of a scalable and commercially viable technique for plasmid
purification using a methacrylate monolithic stationary phase. Journal of Chemical Technology and Biotechnology)
Table 2: Comparison of the
BEL monolith with commercial absorbents across various key performance
indicators. The commercially
available adsorbent used for comparison are: DEAE Sephrarose FF TM;
Q ceramic HyperD 20 TM; Toyopearl DEAE 650 M TM;
Fractogel EMD DEAE (S) TM; Source 30Q TM and BIA-CIM
DEAE TM.
Liability:
The publishers of this website endeavour to ensure that the information published
on the website is correct. However, neither they nor any person or company
associated with the content of the website accepts any liability for usage of
the website and provides no guarantee that the information and data is
up-to-date, accurate and complete.
