Review on biomimetic affinity chromatography with short peptide ligands and its application to protein purification

Biomimetic affinity chromatography with short peptide ligands, as a promising bioseparation technique, has great potential to protein separation and purification, which is based on highly specific biological interactions between specially-designed ligands and target proteins. Generally, short peptide ligands with the chain length ranging from two to nine amino acids could be divided into two types, linear peptide ligands and cyclic peptide ligands. To obtain the desired short peptide ligands, rational design strategies could be applied by knowing the 3-dimensional (3D) information of the receptors or just knowing the surface cavities and the active site of the receptors. Subsequently, several technologies could be used to screen the optimal peptide ligands from the designed peptide ligands, such as combinatorial chemistry, phage display, mRNA display and computer-based screening technology. The screening efficiency is dependent on the different technology for individual target proteins. After screening, the chromatographic resin could be prepared by coupling the optimal short peptide ligand onto a matrix with some spacer arms. The suitable matrix and spacer arms are also important to enhance the ability of the peptide ligand for protein purification. With the advantages of high affinity, high adsorption capacity, structural stability, low immunogenicity and low cost, biomimetic affinity chromatography with short peptides as the functional ligands have shown an extensive development and application potentiality to protein purification. In this review, we focused on the strategies of rational designs and screening for short peptide ligands, and some items on the perpetration of new resins and their applications for protein purification would also be discussed.