Flow field-flow fractionation: recent trends in protein analysis

Flow field-flow fractionation (F4) is the gentlest flow-assisted separation technique for analysis of macromolecules. The use of an empty channel as separation device and of a second mobile phase flow as perpendicular field enable F4 to separate analytes under native conditions without any modification of their original structure. Because of this unique peculiarity, F4 has been shown to be ideal for "gentle" separation of biological samples, for example intact proteins and protein complexes, since its early development. Today's F4 is an appealing technique which complements most established separation techniques, for example liquid chromatography and electrophoresis. The number of applications that show the unique advantages of F4 for analysis of protein samples is constantly increasing. In particular, F4 is finding increasing application on very high-molecular-weight species such as protein oligomers, aggregates, and complexes. This review critically discusses recent literature on the application of F4 to proteins. Either stand-alone or coupled with other characterization techniques, F4 is particularly promising for quality control of protein therapeutics, characterization of amyloid proteins, lipoprotein profiling, and as a pre-MS separation step in proteomics.