The microporous polyethylene hollow fibre membrane is capable of adsorbing small-sized lipopolysaccharides (LPS) prepared by sonication dispersion, column chromatography on Sephadex G-75 and filtration through a filter membrane with a nominal pore size of 0.025 micron. Small-sized LPS had a one-thousandth of endotoxin activity as compared to intact LPS, when determined by the Synthetic Chromogenic Substrate method of LAL with a specific endotoxin activity of 73.7 ng/micrograms LPS. Fluorescent microscopy of fluorescein conjugated LPS on a microporous polyethylene hollow fibre showed that fluorescein-LPS was adsorbed through the entire depth of the membrane texture. Accordingly the adsorption capacity of the filter for small-sized LPS was determined as 1.65 mg LPS/3.68 m2 surface/116 mg fibre/module.
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