378808 Diffusion Coefficients of DNAs and Pegylated Proteins for Estimating the Performance of Chromatography
Pore diffusion governs the separation or adsorption performance of chromatography. Especially, for large biomolecules such as DNA and PEGylated proteins low pore diffusion coefficients result in low performance of chromatographic separations. Monolithic chromatography, a type of convection-aided chromatography, is best suited for such large biomolecule separations. In order to understand the advantage of monolithic chromatography against porous-bead chromatography quantitatively the diffusion coefficients of large biomolecules are needed. Unfortunately, diffusion data (pore diffusion coefficient Ds and molecular (free) diffusion coefficient Dm) for large biomolecules are not readily available.
In this study, the molecular diffusion coefficient Dm (free diffusion) values were determined by using the Taylor dispersion method for various DNAs and PEGylated proteins as well as standard globular proteins. Necessary conditions for measuring Dm precisely such as tube length, tube diameter, coil diameter and flow velocity were first checked. Single-strand (ss) DNAs showed much lower molecular diffusion coefficients compared with those for globular proteins.
The pore diffusion coefficient Ds values were measured by using isocratic elution at non-binding conditions. Ds of ss-DNA decreased with increasing DNA molecular weight much more sharply compared with Dm. Similar trends were observed for PEGylated proteins. Based on these data we calculated the separation performance of typical porous bead ion-exchange chromatography (IEC) in comparison with that of monolithic IEC.
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