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Today, reverse phase liquid chromatography (RPLC) analysis of proteins is almost exclusively performed on conventional columns (100-150 mm) in gradient elution mode. However, it was shown many years ago that large molecules present an on/off retention mechanism, and that only a very short inlet segment of the chromatographic column retains effectively the large molecules. Much shorter columns - like only a few centimetres or even a few millimetres - can therefore be used to efficiently analyse such macromolecules. The aim of this review is to summarise the historical and more recent works related to the use of very short columns for the analysis of model and therapeutic proteins. To this end, we have outlined the theoretical concepts behind the use of short columns, as well as the instrumental limitations and potential applications. Finally, we have shown that these very short columns were also possibly interesting for other chromatographic modes, such as ion exchange chromatography (IEX), hydrophilic interaction chromatography (HILIC) or hydrophobic interaction chromatography (HIC), as analyses in these chromatographic modes are performed in gradient elution mode., Competing Interests: Declaration of Competing Interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper., (Copyright © 2023. Published by Elsevier B.V.)

Ion-pairing reversed-phase liquid chromatography (IP-RPLC) is the reference separation technique for characterizing oligonucleotides (ONs) and their related impurities. The aim of this study was to better understand the retention mechanism of ONs, evaluate the applicability of the linear solvent strength (LSS) retention model, and explore the potential of ultra-short columns having a length of only 5 mm for the separation of model ONs. First, the validity of the LSS model was evaluated for ONs having sizes comprised between 3 and 30 kDa, and the accuracy of retention time predictions was assessed. It was found that ONs in IP-RPLC conditions follow an "on-off" elution behavior, despite a molecular weight lower than that of proteins. For most linear gradient separation conditions, a column length between 5 and 35 mm was found to be appropriate. Ultra-short columns of only 5 mm were therefore explored to speed up separations by considering the impact of the instrumentation on the efficiency. Interestingly, the impacts of injection volume and post-column connection tubing on peak capacity were found to be negligible. Finally, it was demonstrated that longer columns would not improve selectivity or separation efficiency, but baseline separation of three model ONs mixtures was enabled in as little as 30 s on the 5 mm column. This proof-of-concept work paves the way for future investigations using more complex therapeutic ONs and their related impurities.

This paper describes an approach to rapidly and easily calculate the linear solvent strength parameters, namely log k 0 and S, under reversed-phase liquid chromatography conditions. This approach, which requires two preliminary gradient experiments to determine the retention parameters, was applied to various representative compounds including small molecules, peptides, and proteins. The retention time prediction errors were compared to the ones obtained with a commercial HPLC modeling software, and a good correlation was found between the values. However, two important constraints have to be accounted for to maintain good predictions with this new approach: i) the retention factor at the initial composition of the preliminary gradient series have to be large enough (i.e., log k i above 2.1) and ii) the retention models have to be sufficiently linear. While these two conditions are not always met with small molecules or even peptides, the situation is different with large biomolecules. This is why our simple calculation method should be preferentially applied to calculate the linear solvent strength parameters of protein samples., (© 2022 The Authors. Journal of Separation Science published by Wiley-VCH GmbH.)

This concept article reports a practical solution to improve the linearity of effluent pH response as observed in pH gradient cation exchange chromatography (CEX). When performing pH gradient CEX, it is not easy to develop buffer systems that will universally provide pH response proportional with the mobile phase (buffer) composition. It is an especially challenging pursuit when exploring MS compatible buffers (e.g. ammonium-acetate, ammonium-carbonate). In addition to "non-proportional" behavior from the mobile phase composition, the chromatographic column itself will sometimes impose an unpredictable impact on the effluent pH. Here, we propose a simple approach based on the on-line measurement of effluent pH response, conversion of pH to mobile phase volume fraction (φ) and then generation of the inverse response function in the time domain. In the end, when setting the inverse function as the gradient program instead of a linear gradient, an improved - ideally linear - pH response can be produced. A simple Excel tool was developed to assist analysts with this correction procedure, and it has been made available by download for public use., Competing Interests: Declaration of Competing Interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper., (Copyright © 2021 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)

The goal of this work was to provide a technical solution for the automated optimization of multi-column systems for protein separation and fractionation. Both algorithm and a software that can be downloaded are provided. In this algorithm, the length and order of the individual column segments can be considered. Various solutions are provided by the algorithm, including i) to obtain uniform peak distribution, ii) to park the different species at the inlet of the individual column segments, and iii) to elute all species as a single peak. Two representative examples are presented, showing the possibility to obtain uniform selectivity between monoclonal antibody (mAb) sub-units, and the on-column fractioning of intact mAbs., Competing Interests: Declaration of Competing Interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper. The authors declare the following financial interests/personal relationships which may be considered as potential competing interests:, (Copyright © 2020. Published by Elsevier B.V.)

In the present work, we describe the fundamental and practical advantages of a new strategy to improve the resolution of very closely eluting peaks within therapeutic protein samples. This approach involves the use of multiple isocratic steps, together with the addition of a steep negative gradient segment (with a decrease in mobile phase strength) to "park" a slightly more retained peak somewhere along the column (at a given migration distance), while a slightly less retained compound can be eluted. First, some model calculations were performed to highlight the potential of this innovative approach. For this purpose, the retention parameters (logk 0 and S) for two case studies were considered, namely the analysis of a mixture of two therapeutic mAbs (simple to resolve sample) and separation of a therapeutic mAb from its main variant (challenging to resolve sample). The results confirm that the insertion of a negative segment into a multi-isocratic elution program can be a good tool to improve selectivity between critical peak pairs. However, it is also important to keep in mind that this approach only works with large solutes, which more or less follow an "on-off" type elution behavior. Two real applications were successfully developed to illustrate the practical advantage of this new approach, including the separation of a therapeutic mAb from its main variant possessing very close elution behavior, and the separation of a carrier protein from an intact mAb as might be encountered in a quantitative bioanalysis assay. These two examples demonstrate that improved selectivity can be achieved for protein RPLC through the inclusion of a negative gradient slope that selectively bifurcates the elution of two or more peaks of interest., Competing Interests: Declaration of Competing Interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper., (Copyright © 2020. Published by Elsevier B.V.)

The aim of this study was to evaluate the practical possibilities and limitations of several recently introduced size exclusion chromatographic (SEC) columns of 150×4.6mm, sub-3μm (Agilent AdvanceBioSEC 2.7μm, Tosoh TSKgel UP-SW3000 2.0μm, Phenomenex Yarra SEC X-150 1.8μm and Waters Acquity BEH200 1.7μm) for the separation of biopharmaceutical proteins. For this purpose, some model proteins were tested, as well as several commercial therapeutic monoclonal antibodies (mAbs) and antibody-drug-conjugates (ADCs). Calibration curves were drawn to highlight the applicability of these new SEC columns for the separation of mAbs, ADCs and their aggregates, despite some differences in their nominal pore diameter (vary from 150 to 300Å). The kinetic performance (van Deemter curves and kinetic pots) was evaluated. Columns packed with 1.7-2.0μm particles improved the plate count by a factor of 1.5-2 compared to 2.7μm particles, which is in agreement with theoretical expectations. Finally, possible secondary hydrophobic and/or electrostatic interactions between the SEC stationary phases and biopharmaceutical proteins were systematically studied. Significant differences in nonspecific interactions were observed, with hydrophobic interactions generally exerting more influence than electrostatic interactions. The use of a novel bond chemistry with the AdvanceBioSEC column was found highly effective to limit non-specific interactions and pave the way to further improvements for column provider. At the end, the average resolutions achieved on the four sub-3μm SEC columns between monomer and dimer structures were comparable for ten approved mAbs products., (Copyright © 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)

This review summarizes the use of computer assisted liquid chromatographic method development for the analytical characterization of protein biopharmaceuticals. Several modes of chromatography including reversed-phase liquid chromatography (RPLC), ion exchange chromatography (IEX), hydrophobic interaction chromatography (HIC) and some perspectives are discussed. For all these chromatographic modes, the most important variables for tuning retention and selectivity are exposed. Then, the retention models that were applied in the literature in RPLC, IEX and HIC are described and critically discussed. Finally, some representative examples of separation of therapeutic proteins and mAbs are shown, to illustrate the possibilities offered by the retention modeling approach. At the end, the reliability of the models was excellent, whatever the chromatographic mode, and the retention time prediction errors were systematically below 2%. In addition, a significant amount of time can be saved during method development and robustness testing.

A new stationary phase based on wide-pore hybrid silica bonded with amide ligand has been used to explore the utility of HILIC for the analytical characterization of protein biopharmaceuticals. Various, highly-relevant samples were tested, including different insulins, interferon α-2b and trastuzumab. This work shows that HILIC can be successfully employed for the analysis of therapeutic proteins and mAbs, using mobile phase compositions comprised of between 65 and 80% ACN and 0.1% TFA. In terms of elution order and selectivity, these HILIC separations have proven to be highly orthogonal to RPLC, while the kinetic performance remains comparable. In the case of characterizing trastuzumab, HILIC was uniquely able to resolve several important glycoforms at the middle-up level of analysis (fragments of 25-100kDa). Such a separation of glycoforms has been elusive by other separation mechanisms, such as RPLC and IEX. Besides showing orthogonality to RPLC and improved separations of glycoforms, HILIC offers several additional benefits for biopharmaceutical characterization: i) an inherent compatibility with MS, ii) a reduced requirement for very high mobile phase temperatures that are otherwise needed in RPLC to limit undesirably strong adsorption to the surface of the stationary phase, and iii) the possibility to couple several columns in series to improve resolving power, thanks to comparatively low mobile phase viscosity., (Copyright © 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)

In this study, reversed phase liquid chromatographic columns packed with superficially porous material made of a carbon core and nanodiamond-polymer shell were evaluated for the analytical characterization of proteins. The emphasis was put on the impact of pore size on the kinetic performance when analyzing large molecules. Three different types of columns possessing an average pore size of 120, 180, and 250Å were thus evaluated. As expected, the peak capacities were improved with the 180 and above all the 250Å pore size, while the kinetic performance achieved with the 120Å were systematically lower. It was also shown that a trifluoroacetic acid (TFA) concentration of 0.3-0.5% was required when analyzing proteins, to achieve suitable peak shapes (limited broadening and tailing) with this material. Elevated temperature (>60°C) is mandatory when analyzing proteins with silica-based stationary phases, but this was not the case with this particular column made with a carbon core and nanodiamond-polymer shell, since the peak capacities were not improved at high temperature. However, there was a need to increase mobile phase temperature in the range 70-90°C when analyzing monoclonal antibodies (mAbs), to limit adsorption that often occur in RPLC with this specific class of biomolecules. Finally, the FLARE(®) wide-pore column was applied to real life samples of native, oxidative stressed and reduced therapeutic proteins as well as reduced, digested mAbs and antibody drug conjugates (ADCs), to highlight the possibilities offered by this column technology., (Copyright © 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)

The goal of this work was to evaluate the changes in retention induced by frictional heating, pressure and temperature under ultra high pressure liquid chromatography (UHPLC) conditions, for four model proteins (i.e. lysozyme, myoglobin, fligrastim and interferon alpha-2A) possessing molecular weights between 14 and 20kDa. First of all, because the decrease of the molar volume upon adsorption onto a hydrophobic surface was more pronounced for large molecules such as proteins, the impact of pressure appears to overcome the frictional heating effects. Nevertheless, we have also demonstrated that the retention decrease due to frictional heating was not negligible with such large biomolecules in the variable inlet pressure mode. Secondly, it is clearly shown that the modification of retention under various pressure and temperature conditions cannot be explained solely by the frictional heating and pressure effects. Indeed, some very uncommon van't Hoff plots (concave plots with a maximum) were recorded for our model/therapeutic proteins. These maximum retention factors values on the van't Hoff plots indicate a probable change of secondary structure/conformation with pressure and temperature. Based on these observations, it seems that the combination of pressure and temperature causes the protein denaturation and this folding-unfolding procedure is clearly protein dependent., (Copyright © 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)

Trifluoroacetic acid (TFA) is commonly used as mobile phase additive for the analysis of proteins in reversed phase liquid chromatography (RPLC). Due to its interesting features, it provides symmetrical and narrow peak shapes for proteins, but decreases mass spectrometric sensitivity through ion-pairing and spray destabilizing. Since RPLC-MS is an important technique for the characterization of proteins, some alternative MS-compatible mobile phases may be required. The aim of this study was to evaluate various acidic and basic mobile phase additives for the LC-MS analysis of therapeutic proteins possessing molecular weight between 5 and 150kDa. At the end, 10mM formate buffer pH 3 was found to be the most promising alternative, since it provided acceptable peak shapes in most cases, together with an average improvement of MS sensitivity by 5-times, compared to TFA., (Copyright © 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)

A new superficially porous material possessing a carbon core and nanodiamond-polymer shell and pore size of 180Å was evaluated for the analysis of large proteins. Because the stationary phase on this new support contains a certain amount of protonated amino groups within the shell structure, the resulting retention mechanism is most probably a mix between reversed phase and anion exchange. However, under the applied conditions (0.1-0.5% TFA in the mobile phase), it seemed that the main retention mechanism for proteins was hydrophobic interaction with the C18 alkylchains on this carbon based material. In this study, we demonstrated that there was no need to increase mobile phase temperature, as the peak capacity was not modified considerably between 30 and 80°C for model proteins. Thus, the risk of thermal on-column degradation or denaturation of large proteins is not relevant. Another important difference compared to silica-based materials is that this carbon-based column requires larger amount of TFA, comprised between 0.2 and 0.5%. Finally, it is important to mention that selectivity between closely related proteins (oxidized, native and reduced forms of Interferon α-2A variants) could be changed mostly through mobile phase temperature., (Copyright © 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)

This review summarizes the recent advances in the analysis of amino acids, peptides, and proteins using hydrophilic interaction chromatography. Various reports demonstrate the successful analysis of amino acids under such conditions. However, a baseline resolution of the 20 natural amino acids has not yet been published and for this reason, there is often a need to use mass spectrometry for detection to further improve selectivity. Hydrophilic interaction chromatography is also recognized as a powerful technique for peptide analysis, and there are a lot of papers showing its applicability for proteomic applications (peptide mapping). It is expected that its use for peptide mapping will continue to grow in the future, particularly because this analytical strategy can be combined with reversed-phase liquid chromatography, in a two-dimensional setup, to reach very high resolving power. Finally, the interest in hydrophilic interaction chromatography for intact proteins analysis is less evident due to possible solubility issues and a lack of suitable hydrophilic interaction chromatography stationary phases. To date, it has been successfully employed only for the characterization of membrane proteins, histones, and the separation of glycosylated isoforms of an intact glycoprotein. From our point of view, the number of hydrophilic interaction chromatography columns compatible with intact proteins (higher upper temperature limit, large pore size, etc.) is still too limited., (© 2014 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim.)

Size exclusion chromatography (SEC) is a historical technique widely employed for the detailed characterization of therapeutic proteins and can be considered as a reference and powerful technique for the qualitative and quantitative evaluation of aggregates. The main advantage of this approach is the mild mobile phase conditions that permit the characterization of proteins with minimal impact on the conformational structure and local environment. Despite the fact that the chromatographic behavior and peak shape are hardly predictable in SEC, some generic rules can be applied for SEC method development, which are described in this review. During recent years, some improvements were introduced to conventional SEC that will also be discussed. Of these new SEC characteristics, we discuss (i) the commercialization of shorter and narrower columns packed with reduced particle sizes allowing an improvement in the resolution and throughput; (ii) the possibility of combining SEC with various detectors, including refractive index (RI), ultraviolet (UV), multi-angle laser light scattering (MALLS) and viscometer (IV), for extensive characterization of protein samples and (iii) the possibility of hyphenating SEC with mass spectrometry (MS) detectors using an adapted mobile phase containing a small proportion of organic modifiers and ion-pairing reagents., (Copyright © 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)

In the present study, three types of silica-based monoliths, i.e. the first and second generations of commercial silica monolithic columns and a wide-pore prototype monolith were compared for the analysis of large biomolecules. These molecules possess molecular weights between 1 and 66 kDa. The gradient kinetic performance of the first-generation monolith was lower than that of the second generation, for large biomolecules (>14 kDa) but very close with smaller ones (1.3-5.8 kDa). In contrast, the wide-pore prototype column was particularly attractive with proteins larger than 19 kDa (higher peak capacity). Among these three columns, the selectivity and retention remained quite similar but a possible larger number of accessible and charged residual silanols was noticed on the wide-pore prototype material, which led to unpredicted small changes in selectivity and slightly broader peaks than expected. The peak shapes attained with the addition of 0.1% formic acid in the mobile phase remained acceptable for MS coupling, particularly for biomolecules of less than 6 kDa. It was found that one of the major issues with all of these silica-based monoliths is the possible poor recovery of large biomolecules (principally with monoclonal antibody fragments of more than 25 kDa)., (© 2013 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim.)

A new size exclusion chromatography column packed with 1.7 μm particles and possessing 200 Å pore size has been critically evaluated for the determination of proteins and monoclonal antibody aggregates. In a first instance, the kinetic performance of this column was compared with that of a conventional column packed with 5 μm particles and with a recently launched 3 μm material, also possessing 200 Å pore size. In average, 2-5 times lower plate height were achieved on the 1.7 μm packing, compared with the conventional 5 μm particles. It was also demonstrated that elevated mobile phase temperature (up to 50 or 60 °C) allows improving the kinetic efficiency by 20-40% in size exclusion chromatography, compared to 30 °C. On the other hand, the new 3 μm material performed only slightly lower kinetic efficiency than the 1.7 μm one. When considering the upper pressure and temperature limits of these three columns, the 1.7 μm column systematically outperforms the 5 and 3 μm materials in the "practical" plate number range (N<30,000) and analysis times could be cut by 2-4 times. The column packed with 5 μm particles was only beneficial for plate counts beyond 100,000 plates, while the 3 μm packing could be considered as a good compromise between speed, efficiency and pressure. Besides the excellent kinetic performance of 1.7 μm size exclusion material under high temperature conditions, some artifacts were observed when quantifying protein aggregates. Indeed, both high pressure observed with 1.7 μm particles (shear forces, frictional heating) and elevated temperature produce some non negligible amount of on-column additional protein aggregates., (Copyright © 2013 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)

A possible complication of ultra-high pressure liquid chromatography (UHPLC) is related to the effect of pressure and mobile phase velocity on the retention properties of the analytes. In the present work, numerous model compounds have been selected including small molecules, peptides, and proteins (such as monoclonal antibodies). Two instrumental setups were considered to attain elevated pressure drops, firstly the use of a post-column restrictor capillary at low mobile phase flow rate (pure effect of pressure) and secondly the increase of mobile phase flow rate without restrictor (i.e. a combined effect of pressure and frictional heating). In both conditions, the goal was to assess differences in retention behaviour, depending on the type or character of the analyte. An important conclusion is that the effect of pressure and mobile phase velocity on retention varied in proportion with the size of the molecule and in some cases showed very different behaviour. In isocratic mode, the pure effect of pressure (experiments with a post-column restrictor capillary) induces an increase in retention by 25-100% on small molecules (MW<300 g/mol), 150% for peptides (~1.3 kDa), 800% for insulin (~6 kDa) and up to >3000% for myoglobin (~17 kDa) for an increase in pressure from 100 bar up to 1100 bar. The important effect observed for the isocratic elution of proteins is probably related to conformational changes of the protein in addition to the effect of molecular size. Working in gradient elution mode, the pressure related effects on retention were found to be less pronounced but still present (an increase of apparent retention factor between 0.2 and 2.5 was observed)., (Copyright © 2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)

In the pharmaceutical field, there is considerable interest in the use of peptides and proteins for therapeutic purposes. There are various ways to characterize such complex samples, but during the last few years, a significant number of technological developments have been brought to the field of RPLC and RPLC-MS. Thus, the present review focuses first on the basics of RPLC for peptides and proteins, including the inherent problems, some possible solutions and some directions for developing a new RPLC method that is dedicated to biomolecules. Then the latest advances in RPLC, such as wide-pore core-shell particles, fully porous sub-2 μm particles, organic monoliths, porous layer open tubular columns and elevated temperature, are described and critically discussed in terms of both kinetic efficiency and selectivity. Numerous applications with real samples are presented that confirm the relevance of these different strategies. Finally, one of the key advantages of RPLC for peptides and proteins over other historical approaches is its inherent compatibility with MS using both MALDI and ESI sources., (Copyright © 2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)

In the present contribution, columns packed with fully porous widepore 1.7μm particles (Acquity BEH300) and widepore core-shell 3.6μm particles (Aeris WP) were evaluated for the separation of model and therapeutic proteins of varying sizes, hydrophobicity and isoelectric points. Two types of bonding were compared, namely C4 and C18 in a systematic way. The kinetic performance of these stationary phases was evaluated in a previous paper hence this new work focuses on their retention behaviour, loading capacity and selectivity. Using the Tanaka tests, model proteins, and other confirmatory experiments, it is highly probable that with proteins, strong interaction mechanisms were predominant on the Aeris WP while the hydrophobic interaction was the driving force of the retention on the Acquity BEH300 material. This explained why, despite the lower pore volume of the Aeris WP material, the apparent retention factors of proteins possessing both hydrophobic and charged amino acids residues were very close on the four investigated columns. In terms of peak widths, values for proteins were similar for all the tested stationary phases, despite the probable strong ion exchange mechanisms of Aeris WP column. This could be explained by the excellent mass transfer characteristics afforded by the thin porous layer (∼0.2μm) at the surface of the particle which probably compensates for the slow secondary ionic interaction kinetics. The loading capacity was also evaluated on all the four widepore columns, using model proteins. On average, approximately 2-4 times higher amount of proteins can be injected on the fully porous BEH300 compared to the core-shell Aeris WP columns when avoiding 10% change in peak width or in tailing. However, this result could be strongly influenced by the nature and shape of the protein, its hydrophobicity, folding, size and number of charges. Finally, all of these columns were employed for the highly efficient separation of a therapeutic protein (interferon-α-2A) and some closely related proteins and showed excellent performance and selectivity. This result confirms that RPLC gained interest in the biopharmaceutical field as it provides significantly better peak widths than size-exclusion or ion-exchange and inherent compatibility with MS., (Copyright © 2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)

The separation of large biomolecules such as proteins or monoclonal antibodies (mAbs) by RPLC can be drastically enhanced thanks to the use of columns packed with wide-pore porous sub-2 μm particles or shell particles. In this context, a new wide-pore core-shell material has been recently released under the trademark Aeris WIDEPORE. It is made of a 3.2 μm solid inner core surrounded by a 0.2 μm porous layer (total particle size of 3.6 μm). The aim of this study was to evaluate the performance of this new material, compare it to other recently developed and older conventional wide-pore columns and demonstrate its applicability to real-life separations of proteins and mAbs. At first, the traditional h(min) values of the Aeris WIDEPORE column were determined for small model compounds. The h(min) values were equal to 1.7-1.8 and 1.4 for the 2.1 and 4.6 mm I.D. columns, respectively, which are in agreement with the values reported for other core-shell materials. In the case of a small protein Insulin (5.7 kDa), the achievable lowest h value was below 2 and this impressive result confirms that the Aeris WIDEPORE material should be dedicated to protein analysis. This column was then compared with five other commercially available wide-pore and medium-pore stationary phases, in the gradient elution mode, using various flow rates, gradient steepness and model proteins of MW=5.7-66.8 kDa. The Aeris WIDEPORE material often provided the best performance, in terms of peak capacity, peak capacity per time and pressure unit (PPT) and also based on the gradient kinetic plot representation. Finally, real separations of filgrastim (18.8 kDa) and its oxidized and reduced forms were performed on the different columns and the Aeris WIDEPORE material provided the most impressive performance (peak capacity>100 for t(grad)<6 min). Last but not least, this new material was also evaluated on digested and reduced mAb and powerful, high-throughput separations were also attained., (Copyright © 2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)

The objective of this study was to evaluate the potential of sub-2 μm totally porous particles and sub-3 μm shell particles for peptide and protein analysis. Specific analytical strategies must be developed for these biomolecules as their importance in the pharmaceutical industry increases and as their structural complexity involves some issues when classical LC conditions are employed. Attention was paid on comparing these different columns in various LC conditions (different temperatures, gradient times, and mobile phase flow rates). The comparison of the different supports was assessed considering columns characteristics (quality of packing, silanol activity, pore size, totally porous or shell particles). In this article, peptides were first analyzed with both column technologies. Similar results to those achieved with low molecular weight compounds were obtained (peak capacity >100 for t(grad) around 3 min and columns dimensions of 2.1 mm id × 50 mm), but specific conditions were required (elevated temperature and the use of a volatile ion-pairing reagent, namely TFA). For peptide analysis following tryptic digestion, the goal was to improve peak capacity and resolution because of the large number of generated peptides. For this purpose, longer columns packed with porous sub-2 μm or shell sub-3 μm particles (i.e., 150 mm) and gradient times (i.e., up to 30 min) were tested. On the other hand, proteins in their intact forms have higher molecular weights (MW>5000 Da) and a tertiary structure, thus requiring different conditions in terms of stationary phase hydrophobicity (C(4)vs. C(18)) and pore size (300 vs. 120 Å). In addition, there were issues with adsorption onto the LC system and/or the column itself. This study showed that proteins with MWs lower than 40,000 Da required chromatographic conditions close to those employed for peptide analysis. For larger proteins, a C(4) 300 Å stationary phase gave the best results, confirming theoretical predictions., (Copyright © 2011 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)

In recent years, a growing number of biopharmaceutical proteins have been produced and are already available, or will be soon available, in the market. These molecules are more complex to analyze than conventional low molecular weight drugs, and thus need powerful analytical approaches for the entire development and delivery process. This review summarizes the analytical techniques available for intact protein determination and the main development steps in which they are applicable. A strong emphasis has been put on separation techniques, liquid chromatography and electrophoretic techniques, but mass spectrometry and spectroscopic approaches are also mentioned. Overall, we highlight how several analytical strategies are necessary to obtain global information., (Copyright © 2011 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)