Multiple-injection technique for isolating a target protein from multicomponent mixtures

An integrated chromatographic process comprising ion exchange (IEC) and hydrophobic interaction chromatography (HIC) for isolating a target protein form multicomponent mixtures has been analyzed. The model mixture contained immunoglobulin G that was the key product of the separation process, cytochrome C and ovalbumin. The adsorption characteristics and the mass transport kinetics of the model proteins have been determined along with their dependencies on the operating variables such as pH, temperature and the salt concentration for IEC as well as HIC media. Limitations of the process efficiency resulting from kinetic effects, solubility constraints and the necessity of the mobile phase exchange between chromatographic steps have been discussed. To improve the performance of the integrated process the multiple-injection technique has been suggested. This technique consisted in loading feed mixtures dissolved in a good solvent onto the column by several small-volume injections under conditions of strong protein adsorption. It allowed diminishing interactions between the sample-solvent and protein and elimination of undesired effects such as band splitting and band broadening. For the process design and optimization a dynamic model has been used accounting for thermodynamics and kinetics of the process. The optimization results indicated superiority of the multiple-injection technique over standard isocratic injections in terms of the process yield and productivity.     

Altering efficiency of hydrophobic interaction chromatography by combined salt and temperature effects

The coupled effect of salt concentration and temperature on the retention behavior of proteins in hydrophobic interaction chromatography has been studied. The retention data of four model proteins, i.e., myoglobin, lysozyme, α-chymotrypsinogen and bovine serum albumin, have been acquired by isocratic experiments of chromatographic elution within the temperature range 5–25 °C at different ammonium sulphate concentrations in the mobile phase. The retention dependencies quantified as functions of the salt concentration and temperature have been exploited in designing the process of gradient elution. The propagation velocity of proteins under conditions of the step gradient of salt and temperature has been determined by use of the equilibrium theory. To evaluate kinetic effects accompanying the band propagation the transport-dispersive model has been employed. It has been shown that altering the propagation of the salt and temperature waves in a proper manner allows improving the separation efficiency. Moreover, manipulation of specific kinetics effects can also be exploited in protein separations.     

Modeling of preparative chromatography processes with slow intraparticle mass transport kinetics

Mathematical modeling of the preparative chromatography process accompanied with complex intraparticle mass transport mechanism involving surface diffusion is discussed. As an experimental base for the analysis two steroid compounds, methyl esters of hydroxycholanic acids (bile acids), deoxycholic and cholic acids were selected. For these compounds surface diffusion kinetics were found to have a marked influence on the band broadening. The isocratic chromatography process was performed in a normal-phase preparative system with ternary mixture of solvents containing hexane, ethyl acetate and methanol as a modifier under different operating conditions, e.g., at various mobile phase compositions and inlet concentrations. The efficiency of the system was found to be dependent on the mass of sample injected as well as on the contents of the modifier. Such a phenomenon was suggested to originate from the contribution of the surface diffusion kinetics to the overall mass transport mechanism. For identifying the general trends and concentration dependencies of the surface diffusion coefficient the simplified approach was proposed. The set of chromatographic band profiles registered at different inlet concentration and mobile phase composition were used for determining the influence of the local solid-phase concentration on the mass transport mechanism. For the simulations the transport-dispersive model was used, in which all sources of mass transport resistances were lumped in the properly adjusted mass transport coefficient. The accuracy of this model was verified by comparing its predictions to the solutions of the general rate model.     

流动相组成、浓度和pH对蛋白质在金属螯合柱上的保留特性的影响

 系统研究了流动相中盐的性质和浓度、溶液 pH以及竞争配体对蛋白质在金属螯合色谱中保留值的影响。导出了描述蛋白质在金属螯合色谱中保留特征的数学表达式 ,提出用洗脱强度指数ε表征盐溶液的洗脱能力。根据不同色谱条件下蛋白质的保留特性 ,发现蛋白质在金属螯合色谱中的保留是配位、静电和疏水的协同作用。对与蛋白质强结合的金属螯合柱 ,以配位作用为主 ,静电作用为辅 ;对弱结合的金属柱 ,以静电作用为主 ,配位作用为辅。在流动相中加入高浓度非成络盐 ,可增强蛋白质和固定相间的疏水作用。     

High-performance liquid chromatography of amino acid peptides and proteins

Summary The retention behaviour of seven globular proteins ranging in molecular weight from 12,000 to 69,000 was investigated using Mono-Q anion-exchange resin as the stationary phase and sodium chloride as the displacer salt. In particular the influence of changes in ionic strength and mobile phase pH on the isocratic retention properties was assessed. Several proteins were found to have significant retention when the pH of the mobile phase was below the reported pl values of the proteins. This behaviour results from the non-uniform charge distribution on the protein surface, which allows interaction with the charged stationary phase even though the protein net charge is equal to or greater than zero. The influence of pH and ionic strength on experimentally observed bandwidths was also investigated. The dependence of the effective reduced plate height on solute capacity factor was found to vary significantly with the mobile phase pH, a behaviour consistent with the interplay of complex multisite binding kinetics. These results provide a basis for further detailed investigations into the mechanism of interaction of proteins not only with charged surfaces associated with adsorptive chromatographic media but also with other macromolecules. For Part LXXXII, see ref. [27].     

Effect of the ionic strength of the solution and the nature of its ions on the adsorption mechanism of ionic species in RPLC III. Equilibrium isotherms and overloaded band profiles on Kromasil-C18

In two companion papers, we have described the influence of the concentration and the nature of completely dissociated salts dissolved in the mobile phase (methanol:water, 40:60, v/v) on the adsorption behavior of propranolol (R'-NH2+-R, Cl-) on XTerra-C18 and on Symmetry-C18. The same experiments were repeated on a Kromasil-C18 column to compare the adsorption behavior of this ionic compound on these three different RPLC systems. The adsorption data of propranolol hydrochloride were first measured by frontal analysis (FA) using a mobile phase without salt. These data fit best to the Bi-Moreau model. Large concentration band profiles of propranolol were recorded with mobile phases containing increasing KCl concentrations (0, 0.002, 0.005, 0.01, 0.05, 0.1 and 0.2 M) and the best values of the isotherm coefficients were determined using the numerical solution of the inverse problem of chromatography. The general effect of a dissociated salt in the mobile phase was the same as the one observed earlier with XTerra-C18 and Symmetry-C18. However, obvious differences were observed for the shape of the band profiles recorded at low column loading (1.5 g/L, 250 microL injected). A long shoulder is visible at all salt concentrations and the band broadening is maximum at low salt concentrations. A slow mass transfer kinetics on the high-energy sites of the bi-Moreau model might explain this original shape. Five other salts (NaCl, CsCl, KNO3, CaCl2 and Na2SO4) were also used at the same ionic strength (J = 0.2 M). As many different band profiles were observed, suggesting that specific solute-salt interactions take place in the adsorbed phase.     

乙二醇-磷霉素改性氧化锆色谱固定相的制备及其在蛋白质分离中的应用

合成了分离蛋白质的乙二醇-磷霉素钠改性氧化锆高效液相色谱固定相, 通过漫反射红外光谱、元素分析等分析方法对该固定相进行了表征. 以溶菌酶、核糖核酸酶A、细胞色素C和糜蛋白酶四种标准碱性蛋白质为探针, 系统地考察了固定相的疏水相互作用色谱性能. 结果表明, 乙二醇-磷霉素改性氧化锆固定相对蛋白质有一定的保留, 表现出较高的分离选择性.     

Use of the surfactant 3-(3-cholamidopropyl)-dimethyl-ammoniopropane sulfonate in hydrophobic interaction chromatography of proteins

Isocratic hydrophobic interaction chromatography of five proteins has been carried out using mobile phases containing the surfactant 3-(3-cholamidopropyl)-dimethylammoniopropane sulfonate (CHAPS). Linear relationships were found between log k' and ammonium sulfate concentrations for all the proteins with CHAPS in the submicellar concentration range. The slope of such a plot decreases monotonically as CHAPS concentration is increased. To a first approximation, the effect of CHAPS on protein retention can be explained in terms of a competitive binding model. However, CHAPS does show differential effects on the elution of proteins, substantially altering selectivity. The use of a normalized capacity factor, k'/k'o, proves useful for comparing retention times of different proteins as a function of CHAPS concentration. The magnitudes of k'/k'o were found to be inversely correlated with the slopes of plots of log k' vs. ammonium sulfate concentration in the absence of CHAPS. Adsorption isotherms for CHAPS were determined over the working range of ammonium sulfate. The binding of CHAPS to the SynChropak Propyl stationary phase and its effects on retention were found to be readily reversible. For each protein, plots of k'/k'o vs. surface concentration of CHAPS were superposable for data obtained at different salt concentrations. These findings support a competitive binding model. A simple geometric argument for stationary phase occupancy provides a qualitative explanation for the observed surfactant selectivity.     

Effect of the ionic strength of salts on retention and overloading behavior of ionizable compounds in reversed-phase liquid chromatography I. XTerra-C18

The influence of the salt concentration (potassium chloride) on the retention and overloading behavior of the propranolol cation (R'-NH2+ -R) on an XTerra-C18 column, in a methanol:water solution, was investigated. The adsorption isotherm data were first determined by frontal analysis (FA) for a mobile phase without salt (25% methanol, v/v). It was shown that the adsorption energy distribution calculated from these raw adsorption data is bimodal and that the isotherm model that best accounts for these data is the bi-Moreau model. Assuming that the addition of a salt into the mobile phase changes the numerical values of the parameters of the isotherm model, not its mathematical form, we used the inverse method (IM) of chromatography to determine the isotherm with seven salt concentrations in the mobile phase (40% methanol, v/v; 0, 0.002, 0.005, 0.01, 0.05, 0.1 and 0.2 M). The saturation capacities of the model increase, q(s,1) by a factor two and q(s,2) by a factor four, with increasing salt concentration in the range studied while the adsorption constant b1 increases four times and b2 decreases four times. Adsorbate-adsorbate interactions vanish in the presence of salt, consistent with results obtained previously on a C18-Kromasil column. Finally, besides the ionic strength of the solution, the size, valence, and nature of the salt ions affect the thermodynamic as well as the mass transfer kinetics of the adsorption mechanism of propranolol on the XTerra column.     

Mixed‐mode chromatography integrated with high‐performance liquid chromatography for protein analysis and separation: Using bovine serum albumin and lysozyme as the model target

A type of mixed‐mode chromatography was integrated with high‐performance liquid chromatography for protein analysis and separation. The chromatographic behavior was tested using bovine serum albumin and lysozyme as model proteins. For the mixed‐mode column, the silica beads were activated with γ‐(2,3‐epoxypropoxy)‐propytrimethoxysilane and coupled with 4‐mercaptopyridine as the functional ligand. The effects of pH, salt, and the organic solvent conditions of the mobile phase on the retention behavior were studied, which provided valuable clues for separation strategy. When eluted with a suitable pH gradient, salt concentration gradient, and acetonitrile content gradient, the separation behavior of bovine serum albumin and lysozyme could be controlled by altering the conditions of the mobile phase. The results indicated this type of chromatography might be a useful method for protein analysis and separation.     

用参数Z表征疏水色谱中脲浓度与蛋白质分子的构象变化

研究了５种标准蛋白在流动相中含有不同脲浓度条件下的疏水色谱保留行为。当脲浓度不变时，蛋白质的保留仍然服从计量置换保留模型，并可测定在该特定脲浓度条件下蛋白质的Ｚ值。计量置换参数Ｚ可作为疏水色谱中生物大分子的构象变化的表征。     

Per Aqueous Liquid Chromatography (PALC) as a Simple Method for Native Separation of Protein A

Staphylococcal protein A (protein A) is an important protein frequently used in research studies within the fields of biomedicine and biotechnology. Due to some limitations in available protein purification methods which can hold the native structure of the protein A without changing the folding or adding histidine to structure of this protein, its separation in the native form is difficult. In this study, a new cost-effective and powerful technique was introduced for separation of the full-length and truncated forms of recombinant protein A, without any alteration in their 3D structures. Per aqueous liquid chromatography with bare silica gel stationary phase and water:acetonitrile as the mobile phase was proved to be an attractive choice among the range of separation methods. Similar to hydrophilic liquid chromatography, this method employs high percentage of water in mobile phase. The effects of mobile phase composition, pH, and salt concentration on the retention behavior of protein A on bare silica gel stationary phases were investigated. In this method, applying high amounts of aqueous solvent accompanied by a minimum percentage of organic solvent could successfully separate protein A with preservation of folding, and any affinity-tagged group such as histidine has not occurred on its structure. Purity of the fractions obtained by the proposed method was confirmed using SDS-PAGE, western blotting, and matrix-assisted laser desorption ionization time-of-flight mass spectrometry. According to the results of ELISA, separated proteins retained their ability of binding to antibody.     

Retention model of protein for mixedmode interaction mechanism in ion exchange and hydrophobic interaction chromatography

A unified retention equation of proteins was proved to be valid for a mixed-mode interaction mechanism in ion exchange chromatography (IEC) and hydrophobia interaction chro-matography (HIC). The reason to form a "U" shape retention curve of proteins hi both HIC and IEC was explained and the concentration range of the strongest elution ability for the mobile phase was determined with this equation. The parameters in this equation could be used to characterize the difference for either HIC or IEC adsorbents and the changes in the molecular conformation of proteins. With the parameters in this equation, the contributions of salt and water in the mobile phase to the protein retention in HIC and IEC were discussed, respectively. In addition, the comparison between the unified equation and Melander' s three-parameter equation for mixed-mode interaction chromatography was also investigated and better results were obtained in former equation.     

Modeling of thermal processes in high pressure liquid chromatography: I. Low pressure onset of thermal heterogeneity

Heat due to viscous friction is generated in chromatographic columns. When these columns are operated at high flow rates, under a high inlet pressure, this heat causes the formation of significant axial and radial temperature gradients. Consequently, these columns become heterogeneous and several physico-chemical parameters, including the retention factors and the parameters of the mass transfer kinetics of analytes are no longer constant along and across the columns. A robust modeling of the distributions of the physico-chemical parameters allows the analysis of the impact of the heat generated on column performance. We developed a new model of the coupled heat and mass transfers in chromatographic columns, calculated the axial and radial temperature distributions in a column, and derived the distributions of the viscosity and the density of the mobile phase, hence of the axial and radial mobile phase velocities. The coupling of the mass and the heat balances in chromatographic columns was used to model the migration of a compound band under linear conditions. This process yielded the elution band profiles of analytes, hence the column efficiency under two different sets of experimental conditions: (1) the column is operated under natural convection conditions; (2) the column is dipped in a stream of thermostated fluid. The calculated results show that the column efficiency is remarkably lower in the second than in the first case. The inconvenience of maintaining constant the temperature of the column wall (case 2) is that retention factors and mobile phase velocities vary much more significantly across the column than if the column is kept under natural convection conditions (case 1).     

Effects of thermal heterogeneity in hydrophobic interaction chromatography

Manipulating temperature and salt concentration can have a powerful effect on the separation effectiveness in hydrophobic interaction chromatography (HIC). However, use of temperature as an operating variable in large-scale applications may involve undesirable consequences such as radial heterogeneity of the column temperature. In this study non-ideal effects of heat transfer in HIC columns were analyzed. The radial temperature gradients were measured by thermocouples immersed in a bed packed into a preparative column. The column wall was either thermostatted by a water jacket or left under ambient conditions. The influence of ineffective column thermostatting and of heat losses on the radial temperature profiles was demonstrated and predicted by a model of heat dispersion in a packed bed. To analyze possible positive or negative effects of thermal heterogeneity on band propagation, non-isothermal chromatographic elution of a model protein (α-chymotrypsinogen A) was recorded under salt gradient conditions as well as at constant salt concentration. To predict temperature and concentration profiles a model of the column dynamics was used. The model accounted for kinetics of mass and heat transfer. A good agreement between experimental and simulated profiles was achieved. It was shown that by proper selection of the process conditions undesirable temperature effects can be avoided or controlled.     

Selectivity differences of water‐soluble vitamins separated on hydrophilic interaction stationary phases

In this study, the retention behavior and selectivity differences of water‐soluble vitamins were evaluated with three types of polar stationary phases (i.e. an underivatized silica phase, an amide phase, and an amino phase) operated in the hydrophilic interaction chromatographic mode with ESI mass spectrometric detection. The effects of mobile phase composition, including buffer pH and concentration, on the retention and selectivity of the vitamins were investigated. In all stationary phases, the neutral or weakly charged vitamins exhibited very weak retention under each of the pH conditions, while the acidic and more basic vitamins showed diverse retention behaviors. With the underivatized silica phase, increasing the salt concentration of the mobile phase resulted in enhanced retention of the acidic vitamins, but decreased retention of the basic vitamins. These observations thus signify the involvement of secondary mechanisms, such as electrostatic interaction in the retention of these analytes. Under optimized conditions, a baseline separation of all vitamins was achieved with excellent peak efficiency. In addition, the effects of water content in the sample on retention and peak efficiency were examined, with sample stacking effects observed when the injected sample contained a high amount of water.     

弱阳离子交换色谱中疏水作用对蛋白保留的影响

选取了四种常用的弱阳离子交换(WCX)商品柱以研究标准蛋白在其上的色谱保留行为。发现在疏水色谱(HIC)模式下,蛋白在这四种WCX商品柱上也有不同程度的保留特征,且洗脱曲线呈现出保留值随盐浓度变化的"U"型。从分子力学角度定性解释了因疏水相互作用力的存在影响了蛋白在WCX色谱柱上洗脱顺序的改变。运用计量置换理论(SDT)中的两组线性方程进一步证实了WCX和HIC中蛋白与固定相间相互作用力的性质,在HIC中为非选择性作用力,而在离子交换色谱(IEC)中为选择性作用力。这四种色谱柱中的两种事实上可在WCX和HIC两种模式下,对标准蛋白进行分离且有较好的分离效果,有可能作为二维色谱柱来使用。     

Influence of the particle porosity on chromatographic band profiles

The mass transfer kinetics of butyl benzoate, eluted on a monolithic RPLC column with methanol-water (65:35, v/v) as the mobile phase was investigated, using the perturbation method to acquire isotherm data and the mobile phase velocity dependence of the height equivalent to a theoretical plate of perturbation peaks to acquire kinetics data. The equilibrium isotherm of butyl benzoate is accounted for by the liquid-solid extended multilayer BET isotherm model. The total porosity of the column varies much with the butyl benzoate concentration, influencing strongly the parameters of its mass transfer kinetics and the profiles of the breakthrough curves. Using all these parameters, the general rate model of chromatography predicts band profiles and Van Deemter curves that are in excellent agreement with experimental results provided the influence of concentration on the porosity is properly taken into account. This agreement confirms the validity of the models selected for the isotherm and for the mass transfer kinetics.