Novel in situ polymerized coatings for hydrophobic interaction chromatography media

Hydrophobic interaction chromatography (HIC) and other capture media are typically produced by grafting different ligands to base matrices at defined surface densities. This often complicates media production. An alternative approach to media involving in situ radical initiated polymerization was used to graft polymer coatings directly at Sepharose® polymeric base matrices. This method appears suitable for producing many different chromatography media on a variety of base matrices. In the present study, it also favorably increased the solution pressure-flow properties of a Sepharose base matrix used to produce HIC media. A wide range of HIC media could be produced by simply varying the reaction ratio of butyl vinyl ether, and hydroxybutyl vinyl ether. The new HIC media was evaluated using five test proteins (bovine serum albumin, ribonuclease A, α-chymotrypsinogen A, myoglobin and α-lactalbumin). The media exhibited classic HIC behavior, predictably controlled hydrophobicity, plus good protein selectivity, capacity (70 mg protein/ml gel) and often total protein recovery. By modifying the degree of matrix hydrophobicity, we could also reduce effects of protein denaturation often seen with conventional HIC and observed as multiple peaks in the chromatograms. Separation of crude protein extracts from Eschericha coli, expressing a green fluorescent protein (GFPuv) and, a more hydrophobic, recombinantly-modified, tyrosine-tagged green fluorescent protein (YPYPY-GFPuv), was also performed. These proteins were very stable, exhibited significantly different retention times, and could be used to study the ability of the media to work with complex protein mixtures. Such GFP mutants appear ideal for characterizing the performance of chromatographic media.