Grafting zwitterionic polymer onto cryogel surface enhances protein retention in steric exclusion chromatography on cryogel monolith.

Cryogel monoliths with interconnected macropores (10-100µm) and hydrophilic surfaces can be employed as chromatography media for protein retention in steric exclusion chromatography (SXC). SXC is based on the principle that the exclusion of polyethylene glycol (PEG) on both a hydrophilic chromatography surface and a protein favors their association, leading to the protein retention on the chromatography surface. Elution of the retained protein can be achieved by reducing PEG concentration. In this work, the surface of polyacrylamide-based cryogel monolith was modified by grafting zwitterionic poly(carboxybetaine methacrylate) (pCBMA), leading the increase in the surface hydrophilicity. Observation by scanning electron microscopy revealed the presence of the grafted pCBMA chain clusters on the cryogel surface, but pCBMA grafting did not result in the changes of the physical properties of the monolith column, and the columns maintained good recyclability in SXC. The effect of the surface grafting on the SXC behavior of γ-globulin was investigated in a wide flow rate range (0.6-12cm/min). It was found that the dynamic retention capacity increased 1.4-1.8 times by the zwitterionic polymer grafting in the flow rate range of 1.5-12cm/min. The mechanism of enhanced protein retention on the zwitterionic polymer-grafted surface was proposed. The research proved that zwitterionic polymer modification was promising for the development of new materials for SXC applications.

Coating of nanoparticles on cryogel surface and subsequent double-modification for enhanced ion-exchange capacity of protein.

A novel composite cryogel monolith was developed by coating poly(glycidyl methacrylate) nanoparticles (NPs) onto the pore wall surface of poly(acrylamide) cryogel. The NPs-coated column was double-modified with poly(ethylenimine) (PEI) and diethylaminoethyl in sequence. Scanning electron microscopy revealed the dense coating of the NPs on the cryogel surface, but the NPs-coating did not result in distinct changes of the column porosity and permeability. The rough pore wall surface and extended polymer chains offered more binding sites, so the dynamic binding capacity of the composite cryogel bed for bovine serum albumin reached 11.7mg/mL bed volume at a flow rate of 6cm/min, which was 4.2 times higher than that of the cryogel bed modified with PEI without coating NPs (2.8mg/mL). The binding capacity as well as column efficiency decreased only slightly with increasing flow rate from 0.6 to 12cm/min. The results indicated that the strategy of NPs-coating incorporating with double ion-exchanger modifications is promising for enhancing cryogel capacities, and the novel material would be useful for high-speed protein chromatography.

Evaluation of steric exclusion chromatography on cryogel column for the separation of serum proteins.

Steric exclusion chromatography (SXC) is a new mode of protein chromatography, in which large proteins are retained on hydrophilic stationary phase surface due to the steric exclusion of polyethylene glycol (PEG) in the mobile phase, and thereafter the retained proteins can be eluted by reducing PEG concentration. In this work, SXC was evaluated on a polyacrylamide cryogel monolith. Microscopic observation of γ-globulin precipitates on the gel surface in SXC was reported for the first time. Due to the compact packing of protein precipitates on the stationary phase surface, the dynamic retention capacity of the cryogel monolith for γ-globulin reached 20 mg/mL bed volume, much higher than those of cryogel beds in adsorption-based chromatography. The effect of molecular weight and concentration of PEG, solution pH and salt concentration on protein retention capacity was in agreement with the earlier work on SXC. Because the cryogel monoliths with interconnected macropores (10-100 µm) allow much easy flow-through of viscous PEG buffer, the SXC can be operated at low back pressure. Hence, the cryogel monoliths are more suitable for SXC than other monoliths of narrow pores reported previously. In the separation of bovine serum proteins, albumin was recovered in the breakthrough fraction with high purity, and globulin was over eight times concentrated in the elution pool. This work has, thus, demonstrated the rapid serum protein separation and concentration by SXC on the cryogel monolith columns.

Protein adsorption to poly(ethylenimine)-modified Sepharose FF: I. a critical ionic capacity for drastically enhanced capacity and uptake kinetics.

To explore the details of protein uptake to polymer-grafted ion exchangers, Sepharose FF was modified with poly(ethylenimine) (PEI) to prepare anion exchanger of 10 different ionic capacities (ICs, 100-1220mmol/L). Adsorption equilibria and kinetics of bovine serum albumin (BSA) were then studied. It is found that ionic capacity, i.e., the coupling density of PEI, had significant effect on both adsorption capacity (qm) and effective protein diffusivity (De). With increasing ionic capacity, the qm value increased rapidly at IC<260mmol/L and then increased slowly till reaching a plateau at IC=600mmol/L. In the IC range of 100-600mmol/L, however, the De values kept at a low level (De/D0<0.07); it first decreased from 0.05±0.01 at IC=100mmol/L to 0.01±0.01 at IC=260mmol/L and then increased to 0.06±0.01 at IC=600mmol/L. Thereafter, sharp increases of the qm and De values [36% (from 201 to 273mg/mL) and 670% (from 0.06±0.01 to 0.49±0.04), respectively] were observed in the narrow range of IC from 600 to 740mmol/L. Finally, at IC>740mmol/L, the qm value decreased significantly while the De value increased moderately with increasing the IC. The results indicate that PEI chains played an important role in protein adsorption and transport. In brief, there was a critical IC (cIC) or PEI chain density, above which protein adsorption and transport behaviors changed drastically. The cIC was identified to be about 600mmol/L. Estimation of PEI grafting-layer thickness suggests that PEI chains formed an extended three-dimensional grafting-layer at IC>cIC, which provided high flexibility as well as accessibility of the chains for protein binding. Therefore, at IC>cIC, the adjacent PEI chains became close and flexible enough, leading to facilitated transport of adsorbed protein molecules by the interactions of neighboring chains mediated by the bound molecules. It is regarded as "chain delivery" effect. At the same time, improved accessibility of binding sites led the significant increase of binding capacity. The decrease of qm value at IC>740mmol/L is considered due to the decrease of effective porosity. The research has thus provided new insight into protein adsorption and transport in polymer-grafted ion-exchange media.