Rational design and synthesis of affinity matrices based on proteases immobilized onto cellulose membranes

ABSTRACTDiscovery of new protease inhibitors may result in potential therapeutic agents or useful biotechnological tools. Obtainment of these molecules from natural sources requires simple, economic, and highly efficient purification protocols. The aim of this work was the obtainment of affinity matrices by the covalent immobilization of dipeptidyl peptidase IV (DPP-IV) and papain onto cellulose membranes, previously activated with formyl (FCM) or glyoxyl groups (GCM). GCM showed the highest activation grade (10.2 µmol aldehyde/cm2). We implemented our strategy for the rational design of immobilized derivatives (RDID) to optimize the immobilization. pH 9.0 was the optimum for the immobilization through the terminal α-NH2, configuration predicted as catalytically competent. However, our data suggest that protein immobilization may occur via clusters of few reactive groups. DPP-IV−GCM showed the highest maximal immobilized protein load (2.1 µg/cm2), immobilization percentage (91%), and probability of multip...