Aromatic ligands for plasmid deoxyribonucleic acid chromatographic analysis and purification: an overview

The aromatic ring systems are among the most stable chemical structures known and in combination with many other chemical groups, they can originate an extraordinary variety of molecules, with interesting chemical and physical properties. Many aromatic molecules have been applied for the purification of various biomolecules, such as proteins, carbohydrates and nucleic acids. Combining aromatic chromatography with optimized production, extraction and clarification procedures, can offer a number of advantages for pharmaceutical plasmid DNA (pDNA) purification. This review focuses on pDNA chromatographic purification and analysis using aromatic ligands. The goal is to give an updated view of all existing aromatic ligands, their main characteristics, applicability and technical features of the chromatographic methods in which they have been applied. Also, a critical assessment of each method is performed as well as a comparison of the different procedures, their key features and limitations.