Currently attempting urea, acetate, low pH based approach, but concerned about re-association of the immunogen after dialysis in PBS. KLH subunit dissociation is being attempted to 1) improve KLH solubility and reduce precipitation after conjugation 2) enhance immunogenicity of the KLH conjugate.
I know that a company in Germany offers special forms of KLH, which might fit your demand. https://biosynpharma.com/oncology/hemocyanine-klh-bladder-cancer/
However, usually the immunogenicity of a conjugate increases with size. In addition, we performed immunizations with insoluble KLH-hapten conjugates (fine suspension) with excellent results.
P.S.: Most probably your attempt to dissociate KLH will fail. If you had some issues with your immunizations, it is usually not a problem with the carrier, but with the hapten.
Can you please tell us why do you want to dissociate KLH? As Michael pointed out correctly, the reason for using KLH as a carrier is that it is a large multivalent (particulate) antigen that is known to induce excellent immune responses. If you need a monomeric carrier you'd be better of to try BSA or Ovalbumin.
1) Increased immunogenicity
2) facility of quantitation
3) facility of hapten/carrier ratio characterization.
Arch Biochem Biophys. 1959 May;82(1):232-4.
Some immunochemical differences between associated and dissociated hemocyanin.
BARTEL AH, CAMPBELL DH.PMID: 13650659
"The protein exhibits increased immunogenicity when it is dissociated into subunits, probably due to exposure of additional epitopic sites to the immune system" (Greg T. Hermanson, Third Ed, "Bioconjugate Techniques")
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