Recent advances in biomolecular process intensification

Escherichia coli has been the most popular cellular biofactory for the production of many biomolecules including recombinant proteins whose bioactivities are not dependent on complicated post-translational modifications such as glycosylation. Despite many advantages of protein production using E. coli, the formation of insoluble inclusion bodies (IBs) poses a major challenge to harnessing E. coli as a host of choice. Furthermore, the complicated processing steps associated with IB extraction, solubilisation of IBs and refolding of the solubilised-denatured IB proteins, which are typically encountered in the traditional IB processing flowsheet, significantly compromise process economics of IB-route protein production using E. coli. In this paper, many recent advances in innovative IB processing technologies are reviewed with a special emphasis on their potential to contribute to process intensification, which is critical to achieve better process economics in the IB-route recombinant protein production using E. coli.