Understanding the role of arginine as an eluent in affinity chromatography via molecular computations.

Substantial loss in yield can occur during the purification of antibodies, up to nearly half of the product. The first and the most critical step in the purification process is affinity chromatography, in which a ligand (protein A) is used to bind the antibody to a column, and eluents are then used to elute the bound antibodies. Arginine and citrate salt are two commonly used eluents for elution of antibodies. The role of eluents in protein A affinity chromatography in general, and the role of arginine and citrate in particular, are not well understood. Arginine and citrate both work well at low pH, but at high pH, arginine improves the recovery of antibodies much better than citrate, which gives negligible recovery. Milder elution conditions are desired because, at low pH, much product is lost due to aggregation. Via molecular computations, we gained insight into the mechanism by which arginine promotes the elution of antibodies. We show that arginine facilitates the dissociation of the antibody-protein A complex and inhibits the aggregation of eluted antibodies, whereas citrate works in an opposite manner. These observations explain the low recovery of antibodies in the presence of citrate and improved performance in the presence of arginine. These results also shed light on the nature of molecular interactions between cosolutes and protein-protein binding sites that weaken or strengthen the binding.

Experimental and theoretical investigation of effect of spacer arm and support matrix of synthetic affinity chromatographic materials for the purification of monoclonal antibodies.

The aim of this study was to elucidate the influence of each material component-the support, the spacer, and the surface chemistry-on the overall material performance of an affinity type purification media for the capture of immunoglobulin G (IgG). Material properties were investigated in terms of an experimental evaluation using affinity chromatography as well as computer modeling. The biomimetic triazine-based A2P affinity ligand was chosen as a fixed point, while spacer and support were varied. The investigated spacers were 1-2-diaminoethane (2LP), 1,3-propanedithiol (SS3), 3,6-dioxo-1,8-octanedithiol (DES), and a 1,4-substituted [1,2,3]-triazole spacer (TRZ). The support media considered were the agarose (AG) resins, PuraBead, the polyvinylether, Fractoprep, the polymethacrylate, Fractogel, and the porous silica, Fractosil. All materials were tested with pure IgG standard solution, with a mock feed solution as well as real cell culture supernatant. The interaction between IgG and A2P linked through the investigated spacers to AG was studied using molecular dynamics. The effect of a modification of the support chemical structure or of the protein-ligand binding site on the material performances was studied through target oriented simulations. Dynamic binding experiments (DBC) revealed that the performances of materials containing 2LP spacers were significantly decreased in the presence of Pluronic F68. The simulations indicated that this is probably determined by the establishment of intermolecular interactions between the 2LP charged amino group and the ether oxygen of Pluronic F68. The spacer giving the highest IgG dynamic binding capacity when Pluronic F68 was present in the feed was TRZ. The simulations showed that, among the investigated spacers, TRZ is the only one that prevents the adsorption of A2P on the support surface, thus suggesting that the mobility and lack of interaction of the ligand with the support is an important property for an affinity material. Both experiments and calculations agree that the chemistry of the support surface can have a significant impact on IgG binding, either affecting the IgG DBC, as found experimentally for materials having similar ligand densities and spacer arms but different supports, or competing with the affinity ligand when hydrophobic groups are added to the model surface, as was computationally predicted.

Molecular modeling of protein A affinity chromatography.

The properties of the complex between fragment B of Protein A and the Fc domain of IgG were investigated adopting molecular dynamics with the intent of providing useful insight that might be exploited to design mimetic ligands with properties similar to those of Protein A. Simulations were performed both for the complex in solution and supported on an agarose surface, which was modeled as an entangled structure constituted by two agarose double chains. The energetic analysis was performed by means of the molecular mechanics Poisson Boltzmann surface area (MM/PBSA), molecular mechanics generalized Born surface area (MM/GBSA), and the linear interaction energy (LIE) approaches. An alanine scan was performed to determine the relative contribution of Protein A key amino acids to the complex interaction energy. It was found that three amino acids play a dominant role: Gln 129, Phe 132 and Lys 154, though also four other residues, Tyr 133, Leu 136, Glu 143 and Gln 151 contribute significantly to the overall binding energy. A successive molecular dynamics analysis of Protein A re-organization performed when it is not in complex with IgG has however shown that Phe 132 and Tyr 133 interact among themselves establishing a significant pi-pi interaction, which is disrupted upon formation of the complex with IgG and thus reduces consistently their contribution to the protein-antibody bond. The effect that adsorbing fragment B of Protein A on an agarose support has on the stability of the protein-antibody bond was investigated using a minimal molecular model and compared to a similar study performed for a synthetic ligand. It was found that the interaction with the surface does not hinder significantly the capability of Protein A to interact with IgG, while it is crucial for the synthetic ligand. These results indicate that ligand-surface interactions should be considered in the design of new synthetic affinity ligands in order to achieve results comparable to those of Protein A right from the ligand design stage.

Molecular dynamic investigation of the interaction of supported affinity ligands with monoclonal antibodies.

Diagnostics and therapeutic treatments based on monoclonal antibodies have been attaining an increasing importance in the past decades, but their large scale employment requires the optimization of purification processes. To obtain this goal, research is focusing on affinity chromatography techniques and the development of new synthetic ligands. In this work we present a computational investigation aimed at obtaining some guidelines for the rational design of affinity ligands, through the study of their interactions with both monoclonal antibodies (modeled as the FC domain of human IgG) and a model support material (agarose). The study was carried out performing molecular dynamics simulations of the support-spacer-ligand-IgG complex in explicit water. Binding energies between IgG and two supported ligands, a disubstituted derivative of trichlorotriazine and a tetrameric peptide, were determined with the linear interaction energy and MM-GBSA approaches. A detailed study of the possible binding sites of the considered ligands was performed exploiting docking protocols and MD simulations. It was found that both ligands bind IgG in the same site as protein A, which is the hinge region between the CH2 and CH3 domains of IgG. However this site is not easily accessible and requires a high mobility of the ligands. The energetic analysis revealed that van der Waals and electrostatic energies of interaction of the triazine ligand with the support are significant and comparable to those with the protein, so that they limit its capability to reach the protein binding site. A similar result was found also for the tetrameric peptide, which is however able to circumvent the problem; for steric reasons only two of its arms can interact at the same time with the agarose support, thus leaving the remaining two available to bind the protein. These results indicate that the interaction between ligand and support material is an important parameter, which should be considered in the computational and experimental design of ligands for affinity chromatography.

Investigation of the influence of spacer arm on the structural evolution of affinity ligands supported on agarose.

The influence of the spacer arm on the interaction between agarose and a supported ligand was investigated through molecular dynamics for a combination of several spacers. The spacers differ for degree of hydrophobicity, length, and chemical composition, which was varied through insertion of thio, ether, and CH(2) groups. Agarose was modeled through a modified Glycam force field, whose parameters were determined through ab initio calculations. The structural model of agarose used for the calculations was obtained through MD studies of the conformational evolution of several agarose single and double helixes. The simulations showed that a modification of the spacer properties could determine a change of the stable structure of the ligand with respect to the support. In particular, if the spacer is hydrophilic and rigid, the favored structure is with extended spacer and solvated ligand. Either increasing the spacer length, and thus its flexibility, or decreasing its solvation free energy, which corresponds to diminishing its affinity for water, rapidly leads to a conformational change in which the ligand adsorbs on agarose. Interestingly, we found that if the spacer is long and hydrophilic, a third metastable structure, in which the spacer is sandwiched between the ligand and agarose, is possible. Simulations of several ligands adsorbed on neighboring sites on agarose showed that if the support is not held fixed through restraints, the interaction force between vicinal ligands is sufficient to determine a major conformational change of the system.