The bound LPS showed low antibody binding capacity, which may be due to limited BKM120 purchase availability of antibody-binding sites on LPS resulting from steric hindrance and/or partial hydrolysis as a result of the alkaline pH used for the LPS coupling to the resin. Altman and Bundle showed that an epoxy-activated Sepharose-gel worked well with underivatised Salmonella Essen OAg, but OAg from other bacteria did not couple to this activated support ( Altman and Bundle, 1994). They proposed the use of epoxy- or succinimide ester-activated Sepharose after OAg derivatisation with a 1,3-diaminopropane spacer. For anti-NTS OAg antibody purification, affinity chromatography

columns are not commercially available. We developed and compared two alternative strategies for inserting hydrazide groups

into the OAg of S. Typhimurium prior to linking to commercially available N-hydroxysuccinamide (NHS)-Sepharose resin. The resulting affinity columns were tested for their ability to isolate antibodies from human serum against the OAg of LPS from S. Typhimurium D23580, a characteristic invasive African isolate of NTS ( Kingsley et al., 2009). Unless otherwise stated, chemicals and reagents were from Sigma. Polyclonal monovalent anti-O:4,5 Salmonella Typhimurium antibodies raised in rabbits (Bio-Rad 59021C) were used as a source of purified antibodies. This antiserum was obtained by immunizing rabbits with selected strains of Salmonella. Monovalent sera were adsorbed

in order to increase their specificity. S. Typhimurium D23580, a well-characterized invasive clinical isolate of nontyphoidal Salmonella from Malawi ( MacLennan et al., 2008 and Kingsley Hydroxychloroquine Pirfenidone et al., 2009) was used throughout the study. This strain is representative of 90% of invasive NTS isolates in Malawi. Bacteria were grown in a 7 l bioreactor (EZ-Control, Applikon) to an OD of 35 as previously described ( Rondini et al., 2011). The OAg was purified according to a new method developed at Novartis Vaccines Institute for Global Health. Briefly, acid hydrolysis (2% acetic acid at 100 °C for 3 h) was performed directly on the bacterial fermentation culture and OAg was recovered from the supernatant by centrifugation. Lower molecular weight impurities were removed by tangential flow filtration (TFF), using a Hydrosart 30 kDa membrane. Protein and nucleic acid impurities were co-precipitated in citrate buffer 20 mM at pH 3. Proteins were further removed by ion exchange chromatography and nucleic acids by precipitation adding 500 mM Na2HPO4, EtOH and 5 M CaCl2, to give final concentrations of 18 mM, 24% and 200 mM respectively. OAg was recovered in water by a second TFF 30 kDa step. OAg was solubilized in 100 mM sodium acetate (AcONa) buffer pH 4.5 at a concentration of 40 mg/ml. Adipic acid dihydrazide (ADH), and then sodium cyanoborohydride (NaBH3CN) were added as solids, both at a ratio of 1.2:1 by weight with respect to the OAg.