Purification of phycocyanin from Arthrospira platensis by hydrophobic interaction membrane chromatography

The cyanobacterium Arthrospira platensis is an important source of phycocyanin, which has many commercial applications in foods, cosmetics and pharmaceutics. In this study, hydrophobic interaction membrane chromatography (HIMC) was used for the first time to separate phycocyanin from allophycocyanin and obtain analytical grade phycocyanin, avoiding packed bed (i.e., packed column) chromatography steps. The extraction of phycobiliproteins was carried out on freeze-dried biomass samples suspended in NaCl 0.1 M, and the phycobiliprotein crude extract was obtained by centrifuging the suspension to eliminate cell debris. The crude extract, after the addition of an appropriate amount of ammonium sulphate, was loaded on an ammonium sulphate responsive commercial hydrophilic polyvinylidene fluoride (PVDF) membrane for the HIMC purification process. Applying a two-step HIMC purification procedure, a phycocyanin purity ratio of 4.20 and a yield of 67.0% was attained.