Adsorption of bilirubin with polypeptide-coated resins.

Poly-L-lysine, poly-D-lysine and poly-L-ornithine have been coated covalently onto a water-swellable polyamide resin. These sorbents, especially the polylysine coated resins, exhibit high binding affinities for bilirubin in aqueous phosphate buffer solutions at 0 degrees C. The polylysine coated resins have an improved binding affinity for bilirubin over the sorbents with lysine containing oligopeptide pendants and much higher affinity than cholestyramine. The binding capacity is directly proportional to the number of lysine residues on the resin. Replacement of poly-L-lysine with poly-D-lysine does not affect the adsorption capacity.