Affinity Chromatography
Yongting Wang
Jan07
What is AC?
• Affinity chromatography (AC) is a technique enabling purification of a biomolecule with respect to biological function or individual chemical structure.
• AC is designed to purify a particular molecule from a mixed sample.
Matrix
Affinity Ligand
The resin
Examples of tags and ligands
• His-tag• FLAGTM peptide• Strep-tag• GST tag• Maltose binding protein fusion• Calmodulin binding protein fusion
• Transition metal ion• Monoclonal antibody• Biotin• Glutathione• Amylose• Ca2+
There are situations where you don’t need a tag.
Step 1. Loading affinity column.
Step 2. Proteins sieve through matrix of affinity beads.
Step 3. Proteins interact with affinity ligand with some binding loosely and others tightly.
Step 4. Wash off proteins that do not bind.
Step 5. Wash off proteins that bind loosely.
Step 6. Elute proteins that bind tightly to ligand and collect purified protein of interest.
http://www.bio.davidson.edu/Courses/genomics/method/Affinity.html
Affinity chromatography applied to recombinant proteins
Purity test
SDS-PAGE
Mass spectrometryN-terminal sequencing, etc.
Downstream of protein purification
• Biophysical characterization
• Biochemical analysis of activities
• Physiological relevance
• Pathological mechanisms
• etc.
Native
Unfolded
Fluorescence spectroscopy
Trp68
Trp42
Trp156
Trp130
N-terminal domain C-terminal domain
Diagrams of crystal structure of HgD
Example: Human lens crystallins
Human gene cloned into pET vector and expressed in E. coli.
Protein folding mechanisms
Electron microscopy IR spectroscopy
• In summary, Affinity chromatography is a method that will allow you to purify a particular molecule from a mixed sample so that further investigation of this molecule could be carried out.
• Thank you for your attention.
Three groups of properties of the target molecule are used in affinity chromatography:
1. Specific binding properties based on biological activity like:- Enzyme active sites- Receptor binding sites- Antibody binding sites etc.These are used together with the natural ligand or an analogue of it. Sometimes the analogue has a broader specificity and can be used for group separations.
2. Naturally occurring prosthetic groups like: polysaccharides etc.Such properties normally allow group separations only.
3. Molecules equipped with an affinity tag like:- Glutathione-S-Transferase (GST) - Oligo histidine etc. This group of properties is used almost exclusively for recombinant fusion proteins.