Use of capillary electrophoresis as a versatile tool to measure interaction constants between a KDR-binding PEGylated lipopeptide and pegylated phospholipid micelles.

In the frame of our molecular imaging activities, a PEGylated lipopeptide has been developed as a specific ligand for the human vascular endothelial growth factor receptor 2, which is considered as one of the important molecular marker of angiogenesis. In this study, the potential of affinity capillary electrophoresis (ACE) is evaluated to measure the interactions of an active PEGylated lipopeptide, its hydrolysis product and its precursor consisting of a peptide structure with different micelles including Brij-35, Tween-20, and pegylated phospholipids. Given the amphiphilic structure of the PEGylated lipopeptide, a MEKC method allowing the simultaneous separation of the compounds of interest was set up, using low percentages of acetonitrile. Analytes were resolved using a BGE consisting of 100 mM borate buffer pH 9.0, 1 mM Brij, and 25% acetonitrile. Optimized conditions were then used to perform ACE experiments. The affinity constants of the analytes with the micelles were calculated on the basis of their mobility decrease when surfactant concentration increased in the electrolyte. The use of different linearization models to estimate affinity constants was discussed and comparison of different surfactants was reported. PEGylated lipopeptide interacted more strongly with pegylated phospholipid micelles than with Brij-35 or Tween-20. Moreover, it is likely that the chemical structure of the compounds, and particularly the lipidic part of the molecules, significantly affects the interaction with micelles. In conclusion, the ACE method can be readily applied to investigate interactions of our targeting lipopeptides with various micelles currently used for the preparation of pharmaceutical vehicles.

Evaluation of microchip material and surface treatment options for IEF of allergenic milk proteins on microchips.

The use of glass and PDMS microchips has been investigated to perform rapid and efficient separation of allergenic whey proteins by IEF. To decrease EOF and to limit protein adsorption, two coating procedures have been compared. The first one consists in immobilizing hydroxypropyl cellulose (HPC) and the second one poly(dimethylacrylamide-co-allyl glycidyl ether) (PDMA-AGE). EOF limitation has been evaluated using frontal electrophoresis of a fluorescent marker of known effective mobility. EOF velocity was decreased by a factor about 100 and 30, respectively. pH gradient formation has been evaluated for each microchip using fluorescent pI markers. It was demonstrated that as expected a coating was essential to avoid pH gradient drift. Both coatings were efficient on glass microchips, but only PDMA-AGE allowed satisfying focusing of pI markers on PDMS microchips. Fluorescent covalent and noncovalent labelings of milk proteins have been compared by IEF on slab-gels. IEF separation of three major allergenic whey proteins [beta-lactoglobulin A (pI 5.25) and B (pI 5.35) and alpha-lactalbumin (pI 4.2-4.5)] was performed in both microchips. Milk proteins were separated with better resolution and shorter analysis time than by classical CIEF. Finally, better resolutions for milk allergens separation were obtained on glass microchips.

Versatile method for electroosmotic flow measurements in microchip electrophoresis.

A novel versatile method for the determination of low or high electroosmotic mobility values in microdevices of variable microchannel design is presented. The electroosmotic flow (EOF) calculation is based on the difference between the apparent and effective mobilities of a reference compound. The proposed method uses microchip frontal electrophoresis for the determination of these mobilities. This requires simple monochannel microchip design and demonstrates versatile and time-saving procedure when compared to conventional current monitoring method when measuring low EOF. It has been applied successfully to the characterization of different coating procedure in glass and poly(dimethylsiloxane) microchips.

Comparison of different capillary isoelectric focusing methods--use of "narrow pH cuts" of carrier ampholytes as original tools to improve resolution.

Two capillary isoelectric focusing (CIEF) systems have first been optimized: one uses a bare silica capillary and 30% (v/v) of glycerol in the separation medium while the other uses a coated capillary and an aqueous background electrolyte. To perform permanent capillary coating, two neutral polymers have been compared: hydroxypropylcellulose (HPC) and polyvinylalcohol (PVA). HPC coating gave best results for electroosmotic flow (EOF) limitation on a wide pH range: as compared to a bare silica capillary, it allowed to decrease EOF by 96% at pH 7.2 after acidic and basic treatments, whereas PVA coating lead only to a 76% decrease. The glycerol CIEF system was more satisfying for the separation of model proteins classically used as pI markers. Finally, the use of "narrow pH cuts" of carrier ampholytes added to commercial ampholyte mixtures allowed increasing resolution up to a factor 2.4 at a chosen pH for the separation of pI markers and milk proteins.

Capillary electrophoresis in classical and carrier ampholytes-based background electrolytes applied to separation and characterization of gonadotropin-releasing hormones.

Capillary zone electrophoresis (CZE) in classical buffer-based background electrolytes (BGEs) and carrier ampholytes-based capillary electrophoresis (CABCE) using narrow pH cuts of carrier ampholytes (CA) as constituents of quasi-isoelectric BGEs have been applied to separation and characterization of synthetic human and salmon gonadotropin-releasing hormones (GnRH) and their derivatives and fragments. The selectivity, separation efficiency, resolution and speed of CZE and CABCE analyses have been compared within a wide pH range of the BGEs (3.50-9.75) using two mixtures of structurally related GnRH peptides as model analytes. A baseline separation of mixture 1 (human GnRH and its three fragments) was achieved in CA-based BGEs at pH 3.5 and in both classical and CA-based BGEs within the pH range 7.00-9.75. Full separation of mixture 2 (salmon GnRH, its two fragments and human GnRH fragment) was obtained in both types of BGEs at acidic pH values 3.5 and 4.00 and at neutral pH 7.00. In addition to the separation of related GnRHs, their effective electrophoretic mobilities were determined and from the dependences of mobilities on pH, the isoelectric points (pI) of analyzed peptides were estimated. The pI values obtained by CABCE were in a good agreement with those determined by CZE in classical BGEs but in some cases rather different from those predicted by theoretical calculations.

Use of quasi-isoelectric buffers as anolyte and catholyte to improve capillary isoelectric focusing performances.

The use of quasi-isoelectric anolytes and catholytes has been investigated to improve CIEF performances. Narrow pH cuts of carrier ampholytes (NC) have been compared to more conventional couples of anolytes/catholytes (phosphoric acid/sodium hydroxide and glutamic acid/lysine). First, a CIEF setup that consists in a bare silica capillary and 70:30 water/glycerol separation medium has been used. The experiments have shown that when using NC instead of more classical anolytes and catholytes, an increase in the protein detection time was observed and the resolutions obtained for neutral and acidic proteins were doubled. Moreover, according to the NC fraction used, the resolution was modified. In order to investigate further the mechanisms involved, a second setup using a capillary coated with hydroxypropylcellulose was used. With this setup no difference has been observed when changing anolyte and catholyte nature. A simple methodology has then been developed to evaluate EOF during focusing and mobilization steps of CIEF experiments. It highlighted the crucial role played by EOF when using a bare silica capillary. EOF indeed decreased by 33% during mobilization step when using NC instead of classical anolytes and catholytes.

Use of quasi-isoelectric buffers to limit protein adsorption in capillary zone electrophoresis.

The use of quasi-isoelectric buffers consisting of narrow pH cuts of carrier ampholytes (NC) has been investigated to limit protein adsorption on capillary walls during capillary zone electrophoresis experiments. To quantify protein adsorption on the silica surface, a method derived from that of Towns and Regnier has been developed. alpha-Lactalbumin (14 kDa, pI 4.8) and alpha-chymotrypsinogen A (25 kDa, pI 9.2) have been used as model proteins. Acidic narrow pH cuts of carrier ampholytes (NC, pH 3.0) obtained from fractionation of Serva 4-9 carrier ampholytes were used as BGE in bare-silica capillaries, and allowed to decrease significantly protein adsorption, as compared to experiments performed with classical formate buffer. The use of NC as BGE appeared to be as efficient as the use of polydimethylacrylamide coating to prevent protein adsorption. This increase of protein recovery when using NC was attributed to the interaction of carrier ampholytes with the silica surface, leading to a shielding of the capillary wall.