Modelling and predicting the interactions between oppositely and variously charged polyelectrolytes by frontal analysis continuous capillary electrophoresis

Determination of the binding constants and ionic mobilities of diquat complexes with randomly sulfated cyclodextrins by affinity capillary electrophoresis

The enantiomers of diquats (DQs), a new class of functional organic molecules, were recently separated by capillary electrophoresis (CE) with high resolution up to 11.4 within 5-7 min using randomly sulfated α-, β-, and γ-cyclodextrins (CDs) as chiral selectors. These results indicated strong interactions between dicationic diquats and multiply negatively charged sulfated CDs (S-CDs). However, the binding strength of these interactions was not quantified. For that reason, in this study, affinity CE was applied for the determination of the binding constants and ionic mobilities of the complexes of DQ P- and M-enantiomers with CD chiral selectors in an aqueous medium. The non-covalent interactions of 10 pairs of DQ enantiomers with the above CDs were investigated in a background electrolyte (BGE) composed of 22 mM NaOH, 35 mM H3PO4, pH 2.5, and 0.0-1.0 mM concentrations of CDs. The average apparent binding constant and the average actual ionic mobility of the DQ-CD complexes were determined by nonlinear regression analysis of the dependence of the effective mobility of DQ enantiomers on the concentration of CDs in the BGE. The complexes were found to be relatively strong with the averaged apparent binding constants in the range 13 600-547 400 L/mol.

Toward an automated workflow for the study of plasma protein-drug interactions based on capillary electrophoresis-frontal analysis combined with in-capillary mixing of interacting partners

Capillary electrophoresis-frontal analysis (CE-FA) together with mobility shift affinity CE is the most frequently used mode of affinity CE for a study of plasma protein-drug interactions, which is a substantial part of the early stage of drug discovery. Whereas in the classic CE-FA setup the sample is prepared by off-line mixing of the interaction partners in the sample vial outside the CE instrument and after a short incubation period loaded into the capillary and analysed, in this work a new methodological approach has been developed that combines CE-FA with the mixing of interacting partners directly inside the capillary. This combination gives rise to a fully automated and versatile methodology for the characterization of these binding interactions besides a substantial reduction in the amounts of sample compounds used. The minimization of possible experimental errors due to the full involving of sophisticated CE instrument in the injection procedure, mixing and separation instead of manual manipulation is another fundamental benefit. The in-capillary mixing is based on the transverse diffusion of laminar flow profile methodology introduced by Krylov et al. using its multi-zone injection modification presented by Řemínek at al.. Actually, after the method optimization, the alternate introduction of six plugs of drug and six plugs of bovine serum protein in BGE, each injected for 3 s at a pressure of -10 mbar (-1 kPa) into the capillary filled by BGE, was found to be the best injection procedure. The method repeatability calculated as RSDs of plateau highs of bovine serum albumin and propranolol as model sample compounds were better than 3.44 %. Its applicability was finally demonstrated on the determination of apparent binding parameters of bovine serum albumin for basic drugs propranolol and lidocaine and acid drug phenylbutazone. The values obtained by a new on-line CE-FA methodology are in agreement with values estimated by classic off-line CE-FA, as well as with literature data obtained using different techniques.

Study of Interactions between Antigens and Polymeric Adjuvants in Vaccines by Frontal Analysis Continuous Capillary Electrophoresis

Vaccine adjuvants are used to enhance the immune response induced by antigens that have insufficient immunostimulatory capabilities. The present work aims at developing a frontal analysis continuous capillary electrophoresis (FACCE) methodology for the study of antigen-adjuvant interactions in vaccine products. After method optimization using three cationic model proteins, namely lysozyme, cytochrome c, and ribonuclease A, FACCE was successfully implemented to quantify the free antigen and thus to determine the interaction parameters (stoichiometry and binding constant) between an anionic polymeric adjuvant (polyacrylic acid, SPA09) and a cationic vaccine antigen in development for the treatment for Staphylococcus aureus. The influence of the ionic strength of the medium on the interactions was investigated. A strong dependence of the binding parameters with the ionic strength was observed. The concentration of the polymeric adjuvant was also found to significantly modify the ionic strength of the formulation, the extent of which could be estimated and corrected.

Frontal analysis capillary electrophoresis: recent advances and future perspectives

The developments on frontal analysis capillary electrophoresis (FACE) from 2012 to 2017 to study interactions of simple and complex systems are reviewed. Most research papers focused on therapeutic drug-related studies; however, other studies include chemical sensing, drug delivery, inhibitor screening and capillary coating. New ligand–substrate systems such as template-molecularly imprinted polymer systems were reported. Comparison of FACE with other analytical techniques used to investigate binding interaction, and the determination of binding parameters using different isotherm models are also covered. In 2017, eight research papers were reported including new detection by ESI–MS. Future research direction of FACE may include high sensitivity detection and throughput screening of drugs, natural products and biomarkers for clinical diagnosis.

Effect of Dendrigraft Generation on the Interaction between Anionic Polyelectrolytes and Dendrigraft Poly(l-Lysine)

In this present work, three generations of dendrigraft poly(l-Lysine) (DGL) were studied regarding their ability to interact with linear poly (acrylamide-co-2-acrylamido-2-methyl-1-propanesulfonate) (PAMAMPS) of different chemical charge densities (30% and 100%). Frontal analysis continuous capillary electrophoresis (FACCE) was successfully applied to determine binding constants and binding stoichiometries. The effect of DGL generation on the interaction was evaluated for the first three generations (G2, G3, and G4) at different ionic strengths, and the effect of ligand topology (linear PLL vs. dendrigraft DGL) on binding parameters was evaluated. An increase of the biding site constants accompanied with a decrease of the DGL-PAMAMPS (n:1) stoichiometry was observed for increasing DGL generation. The logarithm of the global binding constants decreased linearly with the logarithm of the ionic strength. This double logarithmic representation allowed determining the extent of counter-ions released from the association of DGL molecules onto one PAMAMPS chain that was compared to the total entropic reservoir constituted by the total number of condensed counter-ions before the association.

Recent developments in capillary and microchip electroseparations of peptides (2015-mid 2017)

The review brings a comprehensive overview of recent developments and applications of high performance capillary and microchip electroseparation methods (zone electrophoresis, isotachophoresis, isoelectric focusing, affinity electrophoresis, electrokinetic chromatography, and electrochromatography) to analysis, microscale isolation, purification, and physicochemical and biochemical characterization of peptides in the years 2015, 2016, and ca. up to the middle of 2017. Advances in the investigation of electromigration properties of peptides and in the methodology of their analysis (sample preseparation, preconcentration and derivatization, adsorption suppression and EOF control, and detection) are described. New developments in particular CE and CEC methods are presented and several types of their applications to peptide analysis are reported: qualitative and quantitative analysis, determination in complex (bio)matrices, monitoring of chemical and enzymatical reactions and physical changes, amino acid, sequence and chiral analysis, and peptide mapping of proteins. Some micropreparative peptide separations are shown and capabilities of CE and CEC methods to provide important physicochemical characteristics of peptides are demonstrated.

The Effect of Molar Mass and Charge Density on the Formation of Complexes between Oppositely Charged Polyelectrolytes

The interactions between model polyanions and polycations have been studied using frontal continuous capillary electrophoresis (FACCE) which allows the determination of binding stoichiometry and binding constant of the formed polyelectrolyte complex (PEC). In this work, the effect of the poly(l-lysine) (PLL) molar mass on the interaction with statistical copolymers of acrylamide and 2-acrylamido-2-methyl-1-propanesulfonate (PAMAMPS) has been systematically investigated for different PAMAMPS chemical charge densities (15% and 100%) and different ionic strengths. The study of the ionic strength dependence of the binding constant allowed the determination of the total number of released counter-ions during the formation of the PEC, which can be compared to the total number of counter-ions initially condensed on the individual polyelectrolyte partners before the association. Interestingly, this fraction of released counter-ions, which was strongly dependent on the PLL molar mass, was almost independent of the PAMAMPS charge density. These findings are useful to predict the binding constant according to the molar mass and charge density of the polyelectrolyte partners.