Application of a label-free and domain-specific free thiol method in monoclonal antibody characterization

Characterization of free thiol variants in antibody therapeutics is important for biopharmaceutical development, as the presence of free thiols may have an impact on aggregate formation, structural and thermal stability, as well as antigen-binding potency of monoclonal antibodies. Most current methods for free thiol quantification involve labeling of free thiol groups by different tagging molecules followed by UV, fluorescence or mass spectrometry (MS) detection. Here, we optimized a label-free liquid chromatography (LC)-UV/MS method for free thiol quantification at a subunit level and compared this method with two orthogonal and conventional approaches, Ellman's assay and peptide mapping with differential alkylation. This subunit unit approach was demonstrated to be able to provide domain-specific free thiol quantification and comparable results with labeling approaches, using a relatively simple and efficient workflow.