Molecular Modification of Protein A to Improve the Elution pH and Alkali Resistance in Affinity Chromatography

Protein A of Staphylococcus aureus has been widely used as an affinity ligand for the purification of immunoglobulin. However, the low elution pH and the sensitivity to alkaline condition restricted the large-scale application of antibody purification. To overcome these disadvantages, the B domain was selected and mutated to Z domain and the recombinant Protein A was reconstructed by linking five Z domains. First, a section of six glycines was inserted into the second loop of Z domain, Z (6G). This increased the elution pH to 4.0–5.0. Then, the site-specific mutagenesis was conducted by replacing the 23rd asparagines to threonine and 30th phenylalanine to alanine, Z (N23T, F30A). These mutations made the recombinant Protein A shown a higher alkaline resistance than the nature Protein A. The work confirmed the modification of Protein A and exhibited the characteristics of recombinant Staphylococcal Protein A for antibody purification.