ULTRA FILTRATION AND ULTRACENTRIFUGATION FOR THE PREPARATION OF MEMBRANE VESICLES (OMV)

摘要

In place of a step of centrifugation during preparation of outer membrane vesicles (OMVs) from bacteria, the invention utilizes ultrafiltration. This allows much larger amounts of OMV-containing supernatant to be processed in a much shorter time. Thus the invention provides a process for preparing bacterial OMVs, comprising a step of ultrafiltration. The ultrafiltration step is performed on an aqueous suspension of OMVs after they have been prepared from bacteria and the OMVs remain in suspension after the filtration step. The invention is particularly useful for preparing OMVs from Neisseria meningitidis.