Determination of the isoelectric points of low and high molecular mass ampholytes by capillary electrophoresis

A methodology for a reliable and absolute determination of isoelectric points of amphoteric species by capillary zone electrophoresis is proposed. The principle of this absolute method consists in the application of an additional electroosmotic and/or hydrodynamic flow of a background electrolyte. This allows the measurement of electrophoretic mobilities of substances close to their isoelectric points where the net electric charge is very low and electrophoretic mobility tends to zero. The mobilities are measured at various pH values of the electrolyte so as to find the pH at which the substance moves through the separation column at zero mobility under the action of the additional flow only. The number of required measurements is lowered to the minimum with the help of the iterative procedure based on the Regula Falsi algorithm. The precision of the proposed method is predicted theoretically. The feasibility is demonstrated on real samples. The isoelectric points of histidine, myoglobine and ribonuclease are found from their titration curves.