On hen egg fractionation: applications of liquid chromatography to the isolation and the purification of hen egg white and egg yolk proteins

Liquid chromatography has been used as a means of egg protein analysis or as a method for the purification of egg proteins. Several Chromatographic methods, including gel permeation, ion-exchange, reversed-phase, hydrophobic interaction, and immobilized-ligand-affinity chromatography, have been carried out for the separation or the purification of egg yolk or egg white proteins. Ion-exchange chromatography appears to be the most frequently used method for protein isolation and it is the easiest to adapt to a process scale. From an analytical point of view reversed-phase chromatography is, at the moment, the recommended method for egg white analysis. Egg white has been fractionated more often by liquid chromatography than has egg yolk. Several Chromatographic methods have been developed on a laboratory scale, but the application of these techniques on an industrial scale remains limited.