Immobilized metal affinity column IMAC

However, HPLC techniques exist that do utilize affinity chromatogaphy properties. Immobilized Metal Affinity Chromatography (IMAC) is useful to separate aforementioned molecules based on the relative affinity for the metal (I.e. Dionex IMAC). Often these columns can be loaded with different metals to create a column with a targeted affinity. 

Displacement of moderately retained proteins (e.g., lactoferrin and RNase A) has been carried out in immobilized metal affinity (IMAC) stationary phases using myoglobin as the displacer,55,56 While, imidazole was employed as the mobile phase modifier in these studies it was subsequently established that it possessed sufficient affinity to act as a displacer for proteins in IMAC systems.57,58 Figure 5 shows the separation of RnAse and myoglobin using imidazole as a displacer on a Cu2+ charged Sepharose column. To date,... 

Immobilized metal affinity chromatography has been shown to be effective for isolating proteins from crude mixtures, as well as for selective separations of closely related proteins [2]. With respect to separation efficiency, IMAC compares well with biospecific affinity chromatography and the immobilized metalion complexes are much more robust than antibodies or enzymes. These factors make IMAC particularly well suited for scale-up to process scale chromatography. The main scale-up points to be aware of are the degree to which the column is metal saturated, the chelating agent content of the sample, and the potential of leached metal (or its interactions) within the product eluate. 

Since the introduction of metal-ion affinity sorbents for the fractionation of proteins [1], the method became popular for the purification of a wide variety of biomolecules. Metal-ion affinity sorbents are also widely used for the immobilization of enzymes. At present, IMAC is a powerful method for separation of phosphorylated macromolecules, particularly proteins and peptides. The significance of techniques for separation and characterization of phosphorylated biomolecules is now increasing, because phosphorylation modulates enzyme activities and mediates cell membrane permeability, molecular transport, and secretion. Phosphorylated peptides can be separated from a peptide mixture on IDA-Sepharose with Fe " ions (Fig. 2). The majority of peptides pass freely through an IMAC column, whereas acidic peptides, including phosphorylated ones, are retained and can be released by a pH gradient. 

---