Bacteriocin extraction and purification using aqueous two-phase systems (ATPS) as an efficient complementary tool to chromatography: Diversity and major influencing factors

Antibiotic resistance drives the urgent need for alternatives like bacteriocins. These cationic peptides offer diverse antimicrobial applications in food and medicine. However, large-scale purification remains costly (60–80% of production) due to complex conventional methods. Aqueous two-phase systems (ATPS) present a biocompatible, scalable solution, and their application to bacteriocin recovery remains insufficiently investigated compared with other biomolecules. Studies show ATPS achieves high recovery and selective partitioning. Despite these advantages, significant challenges remain regarding mechanistic understanding, process optimization, and industrial scale-up. Key factors influencing efficiency include polymer molecular weight, pH, salt type, temperature, and bacteriocin properties. This review examines these variables and summarizes ATPS configurations like polymer/polymer, polymer/salt, and ionic liquid-based systems. It also covers advanced strategies such as multistage and extractive ATPS. The insights aim to guide the design of optimized systems for efficient industrial-scale bacteriocin recovery.