Lactoferrin purification and whey protein isolate recovery from cheese whey using chitosan minispheres

Direct protein purification from raw materials by chromatographic media represents an enormous challenge, especially when particulate solids and high charge solute are present. In this sense, protein purification from cheese whey is an excellent opportunity to test new chromatographic matrices that can be applied to direct protein isolation. The present work shows the utility of novel multimodal chitosan-based chromatographic matrices for obtaining lactoferrin (LF) and a whey protein isolate (WPI) directly from cheese whey without any pretreatment. A central composite experimental design was used to optimise an operative sequence. This sequence involved LF capture using sulfanilic acid-modified chitosan mini-spheres followed by the capture of the massive remnant proteins using glycidyl trimethylammonium-modified chitosan mini-spheres. Interestingly, a yield of 68% and 70% purity degree was obtained for LF, and 2.71 mg of WPI mL⁻¹ whey was obtained in the WPI recovery process, revealing a potential industrial use of the developed matrices and processes.