QUANTIFICATION OF RNASE A AND ITS PEGYLATED CONJUGATES ON POLYMER-SALT RICH ENVIRONMENTS USING UV SPECTROPHOTOMETRY

Ribonuclease A (RNase A) from bovine pancreas and its PEGylated conjugates has proven to have potential therapeutic applications. Aqueous Two-Phase Systems (ATPS) is a promising primary recovery strategy for the fractionation of proteins and their PEGylated conjugates. However, in order to characterize the partition behavior of these molecules in ATPS, an easy-to-implement method is needed to estimate protein concentration in each phase. This paper presents a novel methodology based on UV absorbance to quantify RNase A and its PEGylated conjugates on polymer (polyethylene glycol) and salt (potassium phosphate) rich environments, simulating conditions found on polymer-salt ATPS.