Downstream Processing of Antibodies: Potential of Affinity Chromatography

The increasing use of antibodies in various biotechnological and pharmaceutical applications has pushed demand to produce antibodies in larger quantities. Considerable interest has now focused on reducing manufacturing costs and reorganizing process development activities to facilitate commercialization. Hence, there is an absolute requirement for purification techniques that meet the stringent quality requirements of these therapeutic agents. Presently, a select combination of techniques are applied to purify antibodies, of which, the most frequent are salting out, affinity chromatography and ion exchange chromatography. Of these, affinity chromatography is increasingly being used as a first step in the purification of antibodies due to its high specificity. In the current review, we focus on the potential of various affinity chromatography practices with an emphasis on their power and limitations.