Low molecular weight of hydroxyethyl cellulose to extract proteins in natural rubber latex

Abstract

Natural rubber latex (NRL) with “low protein content” is regarded as less allergenic latex for medical gloves, medical products, condoms, etc. Therefore, this study was conducted to strengthen the fundamental approach of making “low protein NRL” via oligosaccharide hydroxyl ethyl cellulose (oligoHEC) treatment. OligoHEC (Mw ~10,000 g/mol) is a decomposition product of HEC (Mw ~90,000 g/mol) by treatment with 1.5% H2O2 combined with hydrothermal processing at a temperature of 121°C, a pressure of 0.38 mPa for 30 minutes in an autoclave. OligoHECs were employed to form electrical bonds with proteins. The objective of this study is to obtain the protein content in NRL ≤ 50 μg/g of rubber and to evaluate the effect of oligoHEC treatment on the soluble protein content in NRL. The results show that oligoHEC at low concentration (0.25%) effectively extracted protein molecules. Interestingly, the allergenic protein content in NRL decreased proportionally with the increase in oligoHEC concentration. These results suggest a potential approach to produce NRL products without allergenic proteins.