Immobilization and Stabilization of Proteins by Multipoint Covalent Attachment on Novel Amino-Epoxy-Sepabeads

The prospects of a new commercially available support (amino-epoxy-Sepabeads� ) for enzyme immobilization are discussed in this chapter. These supports have a layer of epoxy groups over a layer of ethylenediamine that is covalently bound to the support. Thus, the support has a high anionic exchanger power and a high number of epoxy groups. Some relevant properties of this support are (1) immobilization proceeds at low ionic strength using amino-epoxy-Sepabeads, (2) immobilization is much more rapid using amino-epoxy supports than employing conventional epoxy supports, and (3) stability of the immobilized enzyme has been found to be much higher using the new support than in preparations using the conventional ones in many cases. Therefore, this support may be a good complement to the traditional hydrophobic epoxy supports.