Determinants of protein elution rates from preparative ion-exchange adsorbents

Abstract

The rate processes involved in elution in preparative chromatography can affect both peak resolution and hence selectivity as well as practical factors such as facility fit. These processes depend on the physical structure of the adsorbent particles, the amount of bound solute, the solution conditions for operation or some combination of these factors. Ion-exchange adsorbents modified with covalently attached or grafted polymer layers have become widely used in preparative chromatography. Their often easily accessible microstructures offer substantial binding capacities for biomolecules, but elution has sometimes been observed to be undesirably slow. In order to determine which physicochemical phenomena control elution behavior, commercially available cellulosic, dextran-grafted and unmodified agarose materials were characterized here by their elution profiles at various conditions, including different degrees of loading. Elution data were analyzed under the assumption of purely diffusion-limited control, including the role of pore structure properties such as porosity and tortuosity. In general, effective elution rates decreased with the reduction of accessible pore volume, but differences among different proteins indicated the roles of additional factors. Additional measurements and analysis, including the use of confocal laser scanning microscopy to observe elution within single chromatographic particles, indicated the importance of protein association within the particle during elution. The use of protein stabilizing agents was explored in systems presenting atypical elution behavior, and l-arginine and disaccharide excipients were shown to alleviate the effects for one protein, lysozyme, in the presence of sodium chloride. Incorporation of these excipients into eluent buffer gave rise to faster elution and significantly lower pool volumes in elution from polymer-modified adsorbents.