Production and purification of IgY from egg yolk after immunization of hens with pig IgG

Abstract

The antibody response in chickens immunized with pig immunoglobulin G was studied during a 3.5 months immunization period comparing the efficacy of two doses of the antigen. The titres of immunospecific antibodies to pig IgG in egg yolk varied from log2 6 to log2 14 during the period of study after immunization, and the immunoglobulin Y (IgY) concentrations varied from 1.0 to 3.8 mg per ml of yolk in two groups of birds. Two IgY purification methods based on salt precipitation using zinc sulphate or cadmium sulphate were developed. These methods were compared with ammonium sulphate precipitation, respectively in terms of yield, total protein content, IgY concentration, and immunospecific anti-pig IgG IgY activity. The specific activity and IgY contents when purified by ammonium sulphate were 1.62.0 and 1.6-1.8-fold higher than those purified by the other two methods. However, only the total protein content obtained by the use of zinc sulphate was lower than that of the others.