Development of HPLC methods for the purification and analysis of plasma membrane glycoproteins

High resolution HPLC techniques such as affinity chromatography (AC), ion exchange chromatography (IEC), and size exclusion chromatography (SEC) were used successfully for separations of hydrophobic plasma membrane glycoproteins. We have tested a lot of commercially available columns for IEC and SEC and performed the purification of the crude plasma membrane extract with the most suitable columns. By using immobilized ligands with different specificities and sequential affinity chromatography, it is possible to obtain a preliminary structural characterization of the interesting carbohydrate residues of membrane glycoproteins.