Posters

The Inter-alpha inhibitor protein family is comprised of complex plasma proteins that consist of a combination of multiple polypeptide chains (light and heavy chains) covalently linked by a chondroitin sulfate chain. The major forms found in human plasma in high concentration are Inter-alpha inhibitor (Ial), which consists of two heavy chains (Hl & H2) and a single light chain, and Pre-alpha Inhibitor (Pal), which consists of one heavy (H3) and one light chain (Fig 1). The light chain (bikunin) is known to inhibit several serine proteases, such as trypsin, human leukocyte chistase, plasmin and cathepsin G which are involved in inflammation, sepsis, tumor invasion and formation of metastasis. Recently, a monoclonal antibody against human inter-alpha inhibitor proteins (MAli 6931) was developed in our laboratory.

The analysis of molecular interactions is a key part of the drug discovery process, and analytical techniques are available for studying in vitro the ligand/target complex since the early stage of the drug development process.

With regard to the assessment of the activity of chemical libraries, the affinity chromatography on HPLC immobilized-enzyme column (or immobilized enzyme reactors, IMER) is one of most promising methodologies for HTS applications.

Human recombinant acetylcholinesterase (hAChE) represents a well-known target for drug-discovery in Alzheimer’s Disease.

Immobilized Metal-Affinity Chromatography (IMAC) is a chromatographic separation technique primarily used for the purification of proteins with exposed histidine residues and for recombinant proteins with histidine tags. Technique uses covalently bound chelating compounds on chromatographic supports to entrap metal ions, such as Cu2+, Ni2+, Zn2+, Co2+, which serve as affinity ligands for various proteins. CIM Convective Interaction Media is a monolithic chromatographic support intended for separation of large biomolecules, such as proteins, DNA and also viruses.

Immobilized Metal-Affinity Chromatography (IMAC) is a separation technique primarily intended for the purification of proteins with exposed histidine tags. Technique uses covalently bound chelating compounds on chromatographic supports to entrap metal ions, which serve as affinity ligands for various proteins. Iminodiacetic acid (IDA), nitrilotriacetic acid (NTA), carboxymethylated aspartic acid (CM-Asp), and N,N,N’-tris(carboximethyl) ethylenediamine (TED) are chelating compounds, most often used to entrap metal ions, such as Cu2+, Ni2+, Zn2+, Co2+ etc.

Convective Interaction Media CIM® is a monolithic support, which provides high rates of mass transfer at low pressure drops. It has been shown that CIM® supports are very efficient for the separation of large molecules, such as proteins and DNA (1). Recent publication has proved that CIM IMAC column can be used for separation of histidine containing peptides (2). Since efficient separation of large molecules is one of the main advantages of CIM® support, purification of His-tagged recombinant proteins on CIM IMAC column should be not only feasible but also simple, fast and efficient.

Affinity chromatography is a key method for protein purification. Its main advantage is in the high specificity which enables purification of a single protein from complex biological mixtures. For practical use the specific ligand should be immobilised on insoluble matrix. As a matrix, standard chromatographic supports are commonly used. They are normally in form of small (some m in diameter) particles containing pores to provide high specific surface resulting in high binding capacity. The pores are normally closed on one side, thus the liquid inside them is stagnant and the molecules are transported to the active site by diffusion. Since the diffusion coefficients for macromolecules, such as proteins, are very low, diffusion determines the overall process dynamics. As a consequence, separation or purification of the proteins takes normally 0.5 to 1h even on analytical scale.

A large number of diagnostics and several therapeutic monoclonal antibodies (mAbs) have been approved worldwide and many more are expected to be approved and licensed in the near future. The reality and the fact that purification or downstream processing can contribute up to 80% of the total production costs of a biopharmaceutical, enhance the need for efficient purification methods. Liquid chromatography provide high level of purity required for human use, increases productivity and has therfore become the method of choice for purification of biopharmaceuticals.

Purification of mAbs can be achieved by a number of chromatographic methods, Protein A and Protein G affinity chromatography being especially powerful enabling high product purity with single chromatographic step.

Human plasma is a rich and readily accessible source for the detection of diagnostic markers and therapeutic targets for various human diseases. These are usually proteins that are present in human plasma in extremely low concentrations and are often masked by the high abundance proteins like immunoglobulin G (IgG) and human serum albumin (HSA), which represent over 75 % of all proteins. In order to enable the detection of potential biomarkers, IgG and HSA should be efficiently removed from the starting sample. In this work an affinity and a pseudoaffinity chromatographic column, used for an efficient removal of IgG and HSA from human plasma, were thoroughly characterized. A CIM monolithic column bearing Protein G ligands was
used for the removal of IgG, and a column bearing an anti-HSA dye was used for the depletion of HSA.

Fast diagnosis of different infections is a crucial for a successful medical treatment. For diagnosis of certain diseases, separation of IgG and IgM in human serum is required to prevent interference or competing. This is usually achieved by adding adsorbent containing antihuman antibodies to the sample. Incubation from half to one hour is needed to achieve the complete removal of the antibody.

A quicker way to achieve the removal of antibody would be the use of a chromatographic support with specific ligand, which selectively binds the antibody. For example, a Protein G column can be used for removal of IgG. This is faster, but also much more expensivfe way of removing IgG's.

CIM Convective Interaction Media stationary phases represent a novel generation of stationary phases for liquid chromatography. Because of their monolithic structure, being designed for the separation and purification of macromolecules, they exhibit a higher dynamic capacity for very alrge molecules in comparison to traditional stationary phases, combined with much shorter process time that further result in a decreased loss of the biologic activity.

In this work, we present low price ligands (coupled to CIM chromatographic support), which can be used for efficient separation of IgG and IgM antibodies.

Immobilized Metal-Affinity Chromatography (IMAC) is a separation technique primarily intended for the purification of proteins with exposed histidine tags. Technique uses covalently bound chelating compounds on chromatographic supports to entrap metal ions, which serve as affinity ligands for various proteins. Iminodiacetic acid (IDA), nitrilotriacetic acid (NTA), carboxymethylated aspartic acid (CM-Asp), and N,N,N’-tris(carboximethyl) ethylenediamine (TED) are chelating compounds, most often used to entrap metal ions, such as Cu2+, Ni2+, Zn2+, Co2+ etc.

Convective Interaction Media CIM® is a monolithic support, which provides high rates of mass transfer at low pressure drops. It has been shown that CIM® supports are very efficient for the separation of large molecules, such as proteins and DNA (1). Recent publication has proved that CIM IMAC column can be used for separation of histidine containing peptides (2). Since efficient separation of large molecules is one of the main advantages of CIM® support, purification of His-tagged recombinant proteins on CIM IMAC column should be not only feasible but also simple, fast and efficient.

Membrane bound heterotrimeric guanine-nucleotide proteins (G-proteins) are the important components of the cellular signal transduction cascade. They are GTPases which cycle between an inactive and an active configuration by catalysing the exchange of GTP for GDP bound to G subunit. In our study we investigated separation of high affinity GTP'S binding proteins (G-proteins) from plasma membrane of porcine brain by HPLC using CIM® (Convective Interaction Media) supports. CIM® supports proved to be an efficient tool for cytosolic protein separation on second or minute time scale. No study of separation of membrane bound proteins by CIM® supports have been done so far.

Tissue plasminogen activator (t-PA) is serine protease which converts plasminogen into plas-min dissolving the major component of blood clots, fibrin. So, it can be extremely useful in clinical practice to help curing of heart attack victims. The most available way protein producing is genetic engineering where separation and purification of goal protein are one of the important steps in protein producing process.

Recently developed High performance monolithic disk chromatography, HPMDC, seems to be a very attractive way for study quantitative affinity parameters of recombinant proteins with different ligands as well as for protein separations and purifications. High process speed prevents the denatura-tion due to temperature and solvents influence. The better mass transfer mechanism (convection rather than diffusion) allows to consider only the biospecific reaction as time limiting.

It is known that plasminogen, which is the natural substratum for t-PA, can be successfully used as affinity ligand to separate t-PA from cellular media. However, the use of synthetic ligands for affinity chromatography is more preferable due to their higher stability and lower total cost.

The availability of sufficient quantities of quality DNA is always a crucial point in DNA based methods, i.e. for PCR, DNA sequencing, Southern blotting, and microarrays [1]. The same is true for the PCR-based methods for detection of genetically modified food [2]. During the production chain foods passes several physical, biological, and chemical processes, which all negatively influences on the quantity of available DNA. The phenomenon is especially expressive when high temperature treatment is performed at low pH [3]. The existing methods for DNA isolation from food cannot always fulfill the expectations of quantity and quality of isolated DNA. Furthermore they usually include 100 mg of sample and are difficult to scale-up [4]. Four major chromatographic modes are used for the separation of DNA: size-exclusion, anion-exchange, ion-pair reversephased, and slalom chromatography. Of these, anion-exchange chromatography combined with micropellicular packing is described as the most prominent technique so far [1].
Anion-exchange CIM® (Convective Interaction Media) monolithic columns allow fast and flow unaffected separation of several biomolecules, including nucleic acids [5].

Traces of DNA in RNA samples represent impurities that could affect results of mRNA quantification and cDNA synthesis. In most cases, the DNA impurities in RNA samples are removed using enzyme deoxyribonuclease (DNase), which specifically breaks down DNA. In order to avoid the addition of DNase into the analyzing sample, the use of immobilized DNase on solid support is recommended. Because of the DNA size, very few supports available on the market enable efficient interaction between immobilized enzyme and DNA.

In recent years a new group of supports named monoliths was introduced. Because of enhanced exchange between mobile and stationary phase separation and bioconversion processes are significantly accelerated. Therefore also the efficiency of DNA removal using immobilised enzyme might be competitive to the degradation with free enzyme.

The availability of sufficient quantities of quality DNA is always a crucial point in DNA based methods, i.e. for PCR, DNA sequencing, Southern blotting, and microarrays [1]. The same is true for the PCR-based methods for detection of genetically modified food [2]. During the production chain foods passes several physical, biological, and chemical processes, which all negatively influences on the quantity of available DNA. The phenomenon is especially expressive when high temperature treatment is performed at low pH [3].

The existing methods for DNA isolation from food cannot always fulfill the expectations of quantity and quality of isolated DNA. Furthermore they usually include 100 mg of sample and are difficult to scale-up [4]. Four major chromatographic modes are used for the separation of DNA: size-exclusion, anion-exchange, ion-pair reversephased, and slalom chromatography. Of these, anion-exchange chromatography combined with micropellicular packing is described as the most prominent technique so far [1].

The availability of sufficient quantities of quality DNA is always a crucial point in DNA-based methods, i.e. for PCR, DNA sequencing, Southern blotting, and microarrays [1]. The same is true for the PCR-based methods of GMO detection in food [2]. During the production chain foods passes several physical, biological, and chemical processes, which all negatively influences on the quantity of available DNA. The phenomenon is especially expressive when high temperature treatment is performed at low pH [3].

The existing methods, for DNA isolation from food, cannot always fulfill the expectations of quantity and quality of isolated DNA. Furthermore they usually include 100 mg of sample and are difficult to scale-up [4]. Four major chromatographic modes are used for the separation of DNA: size-exclusion, anionexchange, ion-pair reverse-phased, and slalom chromatography. Of these, anionexchange chromatography combined with micropellicular packing is described as the most prominent technique so far [1].

The only four drugs approved for the clinical treatment of Alzheimer’s Disease (tacrine, rivastigmine, donepezil and galantamine) are acetylcholinesterase inhibitors which act by maintaining high levels of acetylcholine at the muscarinic and nicotinic receptors in the central nervous system. Human acetyicholinesterase (HuAChE) represents a widely studied target enzyme and it is still object of research for the development of new drugs as enzyme inhibitors.

In a previous paper il] we reported the immobilisation of AChE on a silica based chromatographic column (50 x 4.6 mm I.D.) The yield of immobilization and the stability of the AChE—IMEN were considered satisfactory, hut some problems arose. The length of the IMER and the large amount of enzyme covalently bound to the chromatographic support resulted in catalysis product long elution times and some inhibitors aspecific matrix absorption with delayed enzyme activity recovery. In order to avoid these complications and considering the high rate of AChE enzymatic reaction, we decided to reduce the dimension of the solid support for immobilization, hence the amount of immobilized enzyme, by selecting a monolithic matrix disk (12 x 3 min I.D.).

CIMa (Convective Interaction Media) monolithic supports (Bia Separations, Ljubljana) represent a novel generation of stationary phases used for liquid chromatography, bioconversions, and solid phase synthesis. As opposed to individual particles packed into chromatographic columns, CIM supports are cast as continuous homogeneous phases and provide high rates of mass transfer at lower back pressure.

In the present work a CIM® disk with immobilised human recombinant acetylcholinesterase (HuAChECIM€ Disk) was developed. The activity of immobilised enzyme, the long term stability and reproducibility were tested. HuAChECIM disk was applied as an immobilised enzyme micro-reactor (micro-IMER) in on-line HPLC system for inhibitory potency determination of known AChE inhibitors.

We have developed a screening procedure for peptide ligands for affinity chromatography on the same monolithic support. CIM® monolithic columns used conventionally for analytical and preparative separation of proteins and polynucleotides were minimized to fit into 96 well solid phase extraction plates. Peptide synthesis and screening were performed on the same format using a vacuum manifold for liquid throughput.

The development of new chromatographic supports with the aim to improve their chromatographic, hydrodynamic and mechanical properties is continually going on.

CIM Convective Interaction Media® monolithic columns represent a new chapter in every mode of the chromatography. Monolithic columns consist of a single piece of a highly porous polymer with a bimodal pore size distribution, forming flow-through channels [1]. Since all of the mobile phase flows through the pores, molecules to be separated are transported to the active sites by convection [2]. Therefore, the entire analysis can be completed in a very short time.

In this work, the performance of novel semi-preparative CIM® RP-SDVB disk monolithic column for separating proteins and peptides has been investigated. Since the column length in the case of gradient separations commonly used for large molecules, does not play a significant role, CIM® RP-SDVB disk monolithic column are extremely short, typically of only 3 mm. The effect of decreasing column length on the resolution under the conditions of a linear gradient has been presented.

Finally, a 1 minute purification of oligodeoxynucleotide from the synthetic mixture has been performed.

Gene therapy which is becoming more and more important in human health care requires the purification of high molecular mass compounds, so called nanoparticles (e. g. viruses and plasmids). The method of choice to ensure proper purity would be chromatography.

Most of the chromatographic supports available on the market at the moment can not follow the requests for such work due to low binding capacity for large molecules, limitation with regards to the time of the separation process and requests for CIP (cleaning in place) and SIP (sanitation in place).

Monolithic supports represent a new generation of chromatographic supports. In contrast to conventional particle supports, where the void volume between individual porous particles is unavoidable, these supports consist of a single monolith highly interconnected with larger and smaller open flow-through channels. Due to the structure, molecules to be separated are transported to the active sites on the stationary phase by convection, resulting in very short separation times. This is especially true for large molecules.

In this work we will present the use of monolithic supports for the separation of different nanoparticles on analytical and preparative scales. It will be shown that monolithic supports can overcome the limitations of particle-based supports for the analytics and isolation of big molecules and represent a major step towards the safe and efficient purification or production of nanoparticles.

CIM® (Convective Interaction Media) supports represent the fourth generation of chromatographic supports monoliths. These glycidyl methacrylate based monolithic columns are commercially available under the name CIM®. In contrast to conventional porous particles the morphology of the CIM® supports is characterised by a single monolithic unit that contains pores, opened on both sides. These pores are highly interconnected forming a flow-through network. Thus the whole mobile phase is forced to run through these open pores, therefore, the mass transfer between stationary and mobile phase is based on convection rather than on diffusion. This transport mechanism enables very fast separations and purifications of components as well as flow-unaffected resolution and dynamic binding capacity. The latter is especially important for the purification of molecules on preparative level where the productivity is essential. One of the key features of monolithic units is their pore size distribution that should enable low backpressure at high throughputs together with high specific surface area, needed for high binding capacity. In this work the effect of different parameters on binding capacity of CIM® monolithic columns is presented.