Direct zonal liquid chromatographic method for the kinetic study of actinomycin–DNA binding

Incorporation of a monolithic column into sequential injection system for drug-protein binding studies

A sequential injection analysis (SIA) manifold was incorporated with a monolithic strong anion-exchanger disk for on-line drug-protein interaction studies. The antibiotic ciprofloxacin (CF) was selected as a model drug compound. The separation principle was based on the strong retention of bovine serum albumin (BSA) on the monolithic strong anion-exchanger and the liberation/release of the free form of the drug. Elution of the retained BSA was easily achieved by delivering a different mobile phase via the SIA manifold. The type of functional group of the monolithic support, the breakthrough volume and the injected volumes of CF and BSA were studied and optimized. The influence of the variation of incubation time was studied in on-line binding assays. Scatchard plot was employed to obtain the number of binding sites and the equilibrium binding constants. For the off-line study of the CF-BSA binding, two binding classes were determined with constants of (3.16+/-0.21)x10(6)M(-1) and (1.27+/-0.48)x10(4)M(-1) and 6.1+/-1.3 and 17.8+/-3.9 binding sites per class, respectively. In non-equilibrium binding experiments the binding rate constant was k(1)=785 M(-1)min(-1). All measurements were monitored with fluorescence (lambda(ext)=300 nm, lambda(em)=460 nm) and spectrophotometric detection (lambda=280 nm). To evaluate the accuracy of the developed method the obtained results were compared versus ultrafiltration experiments and were found in good agreement.

Numerical simulation of the chromatographic process for direct ligand-macromolecule binding studies

A numerical simulation of the direct zonal liquid chromatographic method is described for studying the binding of a ligand to a macromolecule by quantification of the interacting species present in a sample at equilibrium. The algorithm accounts for both the kinetic exchanges in solution and the dispersion effects depicted by the Fick law. Dimensionless variables are used for the concentrations which are expressed as a function of the equilibrium constant, KD. The free ligand concentration was varied in the injected samples from 0.1 to 20 KD, while that of the macromolecule was kept constant. An apparent binding isotherm was obtained from the total ligand chromatogram generated by the simulation run, when the amount emerging at almost column dead volume is plotted against that eluting at the free ligand retention time. As a continuous dissociation of the complex may occur during its migration, the apparent binding curve and the theoretical binding isotherm coincide at extremely low dissociating rates. At larger dissociation rates (0.001 s(-1) < kd <0.1 s(-1), for a first peak eluting in 1 min) the simulations were used to test various chromatographic conditions. The flow rate (or column volume) is the major effect which influences the on-column dissociation process as an exponential decay was found when the apparently bound fraction is plotted against the analysis time. The apparent equilibrium coefficient is close to the theoretical one for a binding curve generated with an initial solution containing a relatively low total concentration of binding sites (< or = KD). The apparent stoichiometric term is largely underestimated as its value decreases exponentially at increasing dissociation rates. An extrapolation at extremely short analysis times could be used to determine the stoichiometric coefficient characterizing the binding interaction.