Investigation of protein binding affinity in multimodal chromatographic systems using a homologous protein library

A library of cold shock protein B mutant variants was employed to examine differences in protein binding behavior in ion exchange and multimodal chromatography. Single site mutations introduced at charged amino acids on the protein surface resulted in a homologous protein set with varying charge density and distribution. The retention times of the mutants varied significantly during linear gradient chromatography in both systems. The majority of the proteins were more strongly retained on the multimodal cation exchange resin as compared to the traditional cation exchanger. Further, the elution order of the mutants on the multimodal resin was different from that obtained with the ion exchanger. Quantitative structure–property relationship models generated using a support vector regression technique were shown to provide good predictions for the retention times of protein mutants on the multimodal resin. A coarse-grained ligand docking package was employed to examine the various interactions between the proteins and ligands in free solution. The multimodal ligand was shown to utilize multiple interaction types to achieve stronger retention on the protein surface. The use of this protein library in concert with the qualitative and quantitative analyses presented in this paper provides an improved understanding of protein behavior in multimodal chromatographic systems.     

Investigation of the adsorption behavior of glycine peptides on 12% cross-linked agarose gel media

The highly cross-linked 12% agarose gel Superose 12 10/300 GL causes retardation of glycine peptides when mobile phases containing varying concentrations of acetonitrile in water are used. An investigation has been made into the retention mechanism behind this retardation using the glycine dipeptide (GG) and tripeptide (GGG) as models. The dependence of retention times of analytical-size peaks under different experimental conditions was interpreted such that the adsorption most probably was caused by the formation of hydrogen bonds but that electrostatic interactions cannot be ruled out. Thereafter, a nonlinear adsorption study was undertaken at different acetonitrile content in the eluent, using the elution by characteristic points (ECPs) method on strongly overloaded GG and GGG peaks. With a new evaluation tool, the adsorption energy distribution (AED) could be calculated prior to the model selection. These calculations revealed that when the acetonitrile content in the eluent was varied from 0% to 20% the interactions turned from (i) being homogenous (GG) or mildly heterogeneous (GGG), (ii) via a more or less stronger degree of heterogeneity around one site to (iii) finally a typical bimodal energy interaction comprising of two sites (GG at 20% and GGG at 10% and 20%). The Langmuir, Tóth and bi-Langmuir models described these interesting adsorption trends excellently. Thus, the retardation observed for these glycine peptides is interpreted as being of mixed-mode character composed of electrostatic bonds and hydrogen bonds.