Effect of pore structure on protein adsorption mechanism on ion exchange media: A preliminary study using low field nuclear magnetic resonance

The adsorption process of bovine serum albumin (BSA), ovalbumin (OVA) and human immunoglobulin G (IgG) on agarose ion-exchange media Q Sepharose FF and two dextran-grafted agarose media including Q Sepharose XL and Capto Q were studied using low field nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR). The T2 relaxation time was found directly proportional to the pore size and diminished after protein adsorbed, therefore, a theoretical model describing the relationship between protein binding amount and T2 relaxation signals was established. The model parameters, a, which reflects the contact area between the adsorbed protein and media surface, and the δ, which defined as the ratio of the protein volume to the pore volume after adsorption, were found to describe the pore occupation states of proteins in media with different pore structures very well. For small proteins, such as BSA and OVA, monolayer adsorption occurred on Q Sepharose FF, which has no dextran chains. Therefore, the adsorbed protein only occupied 49.05% of the pore volume for BSA and 25.51% for OVA, and contact area of each protein on the media were also low, suggesting mostly monolayer adsorption occurred. In the contrast, their adsorption to Q Sepharose XL and Capto Q with dextran chains tended to form multilayer adsorption, thus higher contact area was obtained and the pore volumes were almost 100% occupied. For large protein, such as IgG, the adsorption to all these three media was similar and about 30% of the pore volume were occupied, probably due to the similar restriction for IgG to entering the media pore. Results of this study will help to elucidate the relationship between protein adsorption and pore size variation, which present the significance of low field NMR in understanding protein adsorption mechanism.