Effects of Protein Unfolding on Aggregation and Gelation in Lysozyme Solutions.

In this work, we investigate the role of folding/unfolding equilibrium in protein aggregation and formation of a gel network. Near the neutral pH and at a low buffer ionic strength, the formation of the gel network around unfolding conditions prevents investigations of protein aggregation. In this study, by deploying the fact that in lysozyme solutions the time of folding/unfolding is much shorter than the characteristic time of gelation, we have prevented gelation by rapidly heating the solution up to the unfolding temperature (~80 °C) for a short time (~30 min.) followed by fast cooling to the room temperature. Dynamic light scattering measurements show that if the gelation is prevented, nanosized irreversible aggregates (about 10-15 nm radius) form over a time scale of 10 days. These small aggregates persist and aggregate further into larger aggregates over several weeks. If gelation is not prevented, the nanosized aggregates become the building blocks for the gel network and define its mesh length scale. These results support our previously published conclusion on the nature of mesoscopic aggregates commonly observed in solutions of lysozyme, namely that aggregates do not form from lysozyme monomers in their native folded state. Only with the emergence of a small fraction of unfolded proteins molecules will the aggregates start to appear and grow.

Water Proton NMR for In Situ Detection of Insulin Aggregates.

The need for quality control during the manufacturing and distribution of biopharmaceuticals is becoming increasingly necessary. At present, detecting drug degradation through the monitoring of active factor aggregation is accomplished through "invasive" techniques, such as size-exclusion chromatography (SEC), analytical ultracentrifugation (AUC), and so on. Unfortunately, these analytical methods require sampling the drug by opening the drug container that renders the remaining drug unusable regardless of the outcome of the test. Visual inspection, the current non-invasive quality control method is qualitative and can only detect visible particulates. Thus, it will miss sub-visible protein aggregates. In this paper, human insulin preparations were used to demonstrate that the transverse relaxation rate of water protons R2 ((1) H2 O) can serve as a sensitive and reliable indicator to detect and quantify both visible and sub-visible protein aggregates. R2 ((1) H2 O) is measured using a wide-bore low-field bench-top NMR instrument with permanent magnets. Such analysis could be carried out without opening the drug container, thus saving a drug for further use. The results suggest a novel, economical, non-destructive in situ analytical technique that allows for on-the-site quantification of protein aggregation in biopharmaceutical products.