Harvey IB, Chilewski SD, Bhosale D, Tobia SE, Gray C, Gleason C, Haulenbeek J. Overcoming Lot-to-Lot Variability in Protein Activity Using Epitope-Specific Calibration-Free Concentration Analysis.
Anal Chem 2024;
96:6275-6281. [PMID:
38600735 PMCID:
PMC11044105 DOI:
10.1021/acs.analchem.3c05607]
[Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 12/10/2023] [Revised: 04/01/2024] [Accepted: 04/02/2024] [Indexed: 04/12/2024]
Abstract
Concentration determination is a fundamental hallmark of protein reagent characterization, providing a means to ensure reproducibility and unify measurements from various assays. However, lot-to-lot differences in protein activity often still occur, leading to uncertainty in the accuracy of downstream measurements. Here, we postulate that those differences are caused by a misrepresentation of the protein concentration as measured by traditional total protein techniques, which can include multiple types of inactive protein species. To overcome this, we developed a standardized method to quantify a protein's active concentration via calibration-free concentration analysis (CFCA). As a pilot study, we compare the biophysical and immunoassay responses from three batches of recombinant soluble lymphocyte-activation gene 3 (sLAG3), as defined by either their total or active concentrations. Defining the sLAG3 reagents by their assay-specific concentration improved consistency in reported kinetic binding parameters and decreased immunoassay lot-to-lot coefficients of variation (CVs) by over 600% compared to the total protein concentration. These findings suggest that the total concentration of a protein reagent may not be the ideal metric to correlate in-assay signals between lots, and by instead quantifying the concentrations of a reagent's assay-specific epitopes, CFCA may prove a useful tool in overcoming lot-to-lot variability.
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