Chapter 5 - Enzymes recovery by three phase partitioning

Abstract

Among the aqueous purification systems, three phase partitioning (TPP) is an alternative and cost-effective non-chromatographic bioseparation technique used for the extraction, concentration and recovery/purification of macromolecules, including enzymes, from different biological sources. This chapter is an attempt to serve as a one-stop-resource by gathering all the studies that used this very simple and effective method to recover enzymes with high and acceptable purity from microorganisms, plants and animals. It further includes discussion on results obtained with the TPP-based variants such as macro-affinity ligand-facilitated TPP (MLF-TPP), ultrasound-assisted TPP (UA-TPP) and microwave-assisted TPP (MA-TPP) proposed to improve the efficiency of the recovery as well as for reducing the extraction time, and consequently maximizing the stability, activity yield and purification folds of the targeted enzymes. TPP system and its variants have been used efficiently over the last thirty years but mostly in the last decade as fast and one-step downstream purification processes to recover glycosidases, proteases, oxidoreductases, lipases and other hydrolases for several scientific and industrial purposes.