Example 3
PEGylation of enzyme. Purified enzyme (1 mL, 140 mg/ml) (α-amylase, thermolysin, or lipase) is mixed with PEG (monofunctional linear PEG10000, PEG12000, PEG20000, or 8-arm branched PEG (PEG N-Hydroxysuccinimide ester purchased from NANOCS Inc. (New York, N.Y.), in DMSO) derivatized with succinimidyl ester at a mole ratio of 1:5 enzyme:PEG. The 8-arm branched PEG has a molecular weight of 10,000 Daltons with a comb-shape structure. Each branch has a molecular weight of ˜1,200 Daltons. The structure of the 8-arm branched PEG has the following structure:
The reaction mixture is incubated in an ice bath for 4 hours under magnetic stirring at 800 rpm. Byproducts are removed by ultrafiltration (50K cutoff MW). Enzyme concentration is adjusted to 140 mg/ml for preparation of coating materials, to 1 mg/ml for SDS-PAGE, and to 0.1 mg/ml for activity assays. Some preparations further involve isolation of non-reacted PEG by filtration with a filter with an appropriate molecular weight cut-off for each PEG used in the PEGylation reactions.