Design of functional thermoresponsive polymer brushes and their application to bioseparation

Protein drugs and therapeutic cells are among promising current and future therapies for patients. The importance of these proteins and cells has increased in the clinical field, and protein and cell purification methods, without losing their potency or biological activity, are urgently needed. We prepared thermoresponsive polymer brushes as a new protein and cell separation tool because interactions between the polymer brushes and targeted proteins and cells can be modulated by changing the external solution temperature without using other agents that might contaminate these biologics or disrupt their function. Using these new thermoresponsive polymer brushes, a variety of different bio-separations have been performed by simple temperature changes in aqueous solutions. The present review describes the recent achievement in bioseparation using thermoresponsive polymer brushes.