Capillary electrophoresis of peptides and proteins in acidic, isoelectric buffers: recent developments

The use of isoelectric buffers in capillary zone electrophoresis is here reviewed. Such buffers allow delivery of very high voltage gradients (up to 1000 V/cm in relatively large bore capillaries, e.g. 75-100 microm I.D.), permitting separations of the order of a few minutes and thus conserving (in fact favouring) very high resolution due to minimal, diffusion-driven, peak spreading. Isoelectric Asp (pI 2.77 at 50 mM concentration and 25 degrees C) provides a medium of high resolving power for generating peptide maps. In difficult cases, of coincident titration curves, the pH can be moved up to higher values (e.g. pH 3.0 for 30 mM Asp) thus eliciting separation of unresolved peptides at pH 2.77. This was illustrated by running peptide maps of tryptic digests of human beta globin chains. Also imino diacetic acid (pI 2.33 at 50 mM concentration) allows generation of high resolution peptide maps. Isoelectric Asp, in presence of 7 M urea and 0.5% hydroxyethyl cellulose (Mn = 27 000 Da) is also the preferred medium for fast separation and analysis of storage proteins in cereals, such as gliadins in soft and durum wheat and zeins in maize. A solution of 50 mM iminodiacetic acid (pI 2.23) containing 7 M urea and 0.5% hydroxyethylcellulose (apparent pH 3.2) is effectively used as background electrolyte for fast separation of heme-free, denatured globin (alpha and beta) chains. In the presence of neutral to neutral amino acid substitutions, it is additionally shown that the inclusion of 3% surfactant (Tween 20) in the sample and background electrolyte induces the separation of the wild-type and mutant chains, probably by a mechanism of hydrophobic interaction of the more hydrophobic mutant with the detergent micelle, via a mechanism similar to 'micellar electrokinetic chromatography'.