Immunoaffinity chromatography

Immunoaffinity chromatography is one of the finest example of a range of various separation procedures commonly called affinity chromatography that depend on high affinity interactions  among two elements. In immunoaffinity chromatography the specific antibody to a protein antigen may be coupled to an inert matrix like as polysaccharide beads. Antibodies can be placed in a column and the cell sample loaded on. Protein antigen will bind to the matrix but other elements will fiow by the column.  The protein  antigen  can then frequently be  eluted  in  pure  or  almost  pure  form;  well  over  1000-fold  purification   is routinely achieved in this single step. If the protein antigen is generally exposed on the plasma membrane of a desired cell category, these cells can be purified from a cell mixture through passing the mixture by the column. Only cells bearing the antigen on their surface will connect and can be eluted subsequently.