Modeling of mixed-mode chromatography of peptides

Mixed-mode chromatographic materials are more and more often used for the purification of biomolecules, such as peptides and proteins. In many instances they in fact exhibit better selectivity values and therefore improve the purification efficiency compared to classical materials. In this work, a model to describe biomolecules retention in cation-exchange/reversed-phase (CIEX-RP) mixed-mode columns under diluted conditions has been developed. The model accounts for the effect of the salt and organic modifier concentration on the biomolecule Henry coefficient through three parameters: α, β and γ. The α parameter is related to the adsorption strength and ligand density, β represents the number of organic modifier molecules necessary to displace one adsorbed biomolecule and γ represents the number of salt molecules necessary to desorb one biomolecule. The latter parameter is strictly related to the number of charges on the biomolecule surface interacting with the ion-exchange ligands and it is shown experimentally that its value is close to the biomolecule net charge. The model reliability has been validated by a large set of experimental data including retention times of two different peptides (goserelin and insulin) on five columns: a reversed-phase C8 column and four CIEX-RP columns with different percentages of sulfonic groups and various concentration values of the salt and organic modifier. It has been found that the percentage of sulfonic groups on the surface strongly affects the peptides adsorption strength, and in particular, in the cases investigated, a CIEX ligand density around 0.04μmol/m(2) leads to optimal retention values.