Immobilized metal affinity chromatography in the presence of arginine

Arginine hydrochloride (ArgHCl) is a versatile solvent additive, as it suppresses protein aggregation. ArgHCl has been used for protein refolding and to solubilize proteins from loose inclusion bodies. Immobilized metal affinity chromatography (IMAC) is one of the most commonly used technologies for purification of recombinant proteins. Here we have evaluated compatibility of ArgHCl with IMAC purification for his-tag proteins. ArgHCl clearly interfered with protein binding to Ni-columns. Nevertheless, such interference was greatly reduced at ArgHCl concentration below 200 mM, demonstrating that IMAC purification can be done even in the presence of ArgHCl.     

Parameters for effective in vitro production of zinc finger nucleic acid-binding proteins

Immobilized metal affinity chromatography (IMAC) is widely used for the production of recombinant proteins for a variety of applications; however, a number of challenges are typically encountered by researchers depending on the properties of the specific proteins in question. Here, we describe technical issues we have encountered in production of recombinant zinc finger nucleic acid-binding proteins by IMAC intended for detailed and accurate in vitro analysis. The process encountered leading to a modified IMAC protocol for effective production of high-purity, native zinc finger nucleic acid-binding proteins is described in detail. The parameters with respect to solubility, lysis and redox conditions, removal of residual metal ions with chelating agents, and renaturation in the presence of divalent metal cations are described. These procedures have been extended to production of a wide array of RNA-binding proteins in our laboratory and would be relevant to a number of protein purification applications.     

Immobilized metal affinity chromatography without chelating ligands: purification of soybean trypsin inhibitor on zinc alginate beads

Immobilized metal affinity chromatography (IMAC) is a widely used technique for bioseparation of proteins in general and recombinant proteins with polyhistidine fusion tags in particular. An expensive and critical step in this process is coupling of a chelating ligand to the chromatographic matrix. This chelating ligand coordinates metal ions such as Cu(2+), Zn(2+), and Ni(2+), which in turn bind proteins. The toxicity of chemicals required for coupling and their slow release during the separation process are of considerable concern. This is an important issue in the context of purification of proteins/enzymes which are used in food processing or pharmaceutical purposes. In this work, a simpler IMAC design is described which should lead to a paradigm shift in the application of IMAC in separation. It is shown that zinc alginate beads (formed by chelating alginate with Zn(2+) directly) can be used for IMAC. As "proof of concept", soybean trypsin inhibitor was purified 18-fold from its crude extract with 90% recovery of biological activity. The dynamic binding capacity of the packed bed was 3919 U mL(-1), as determined by frontal analysis. The media could be regenerated with 8 M urea and reused five times without any appreciable loss in its binding capacity.     

A modified IMAC method for the capture of target protein from mammalian cell culture harvest containing metal chelating species

Although immobilized metal affinity chromatography (IMAC) offers high capacity and protein selectivity it is not typically used commercially for the capture of native proteins from mammalian cell culture harvest. This is due mainly to the potential for low target recovery due to the presence of strong metal ion chelating species in the harvest that compete for the metal immobilized on the resin. To address this issue a buffer exchange step, such as tangential flow filtration (TFF), is added after harvest clarification and prior to IMAC to remove the interfering harvest components. The addition of a TFF step adds process time and cost and reduces target protein recovery. The elimination of the TFF might make IMAC competitive with other orthogonal methods of protein capture. In this study, we developed a modified IMAC method to allow the direct loading of clarified mammalian harvest without prior buffer exchange (direct IMAC). Although the target enzyme recovery was lower than that from standard IMAC the elimination of the buffer exchange step resulted in a 19% increase in overall enzyme recovery. The target enzyme capacity in direct IMAC was higher, in our experience, than the capacity of hydrophobic interaction (HIC) and ion-exchange (IEX) for protein capture. An economic evaluation of using direct IMAC as a capture step in manufacturing is also discussed.     

Immobilized metal ion affinity chromatography

This article describes the technique of immobilized metal ion affinity chromatography (1MAC). The IMAC stationary phases are designed to chelate certain metal ions that have selectivity for specific groups in peptides and on protein surfaces. The number of stationary phases that can be synthesized for efficient chclation of metal ions is unlimited, but the critical consideration is that there is enough exposure of the metal ion to interact with the proteins, preferably in a biospecific manner. The versatility of IMAC is one of its greatest assets. An important contribution to the correct use of IMAC for protein purification is a simplified presentation of the various sample elution procedures.     

The saga of IMAC and MIT

Immobilized Metal-ion Affinity Chromatography, IMAC, has been gaining in popularity as the purification technique of choice for proteins and peptides. IMAC of proteins on transition metals (Co, Ni, Cu, Zn) can be rationalized in terms of the coordination of histidine residues. Brief accounts of the principles of IMAC, its anticipated development and plausible applications are presented. Metal Ion Transfer, MIT, may offer an efficient means to deplete a metal ion from a metalloprotein or, conversely, to charge its apo form with a metal.     

Immobilized Metal Affinity Chromatography Co-Purifies TGF-β1 with Histidine-Tagged Recombinant Extracellular Proteins

Extracellular recombinant proteins are commonly produced using HEK293 cells as histidine-tagged proteins facilitating purification by immobilized metal affinity chromatography (IMAC). Based on gel analyses, this one-step purification typically produces proteins of high purity. Here, we analyzed the presence of TGF-β1 in such IMAC purifications using recombinant extracellular fibrillin-1 fragments as examples. Analysis of various purified recombinant fibrillin-1 fragments by ELISA consistently revealed the presence of picomolar concentrations of active and latent TGF-β1, but not of BMP-2. These quantities of TGF-β1 were not detectable by Western blotting and mass spectrometry. However, the amounts of TGF-β1 were sufficient to consistently trigger Smad2 phosphorylation in fibroblasts. The purification mechanism was analyzed to determine whether the presence of TGF-β1 in these protein preparations represents a specific or non-specific co-purification of TGF-β1 with fibrillin-1 fragments. Control purifications using conditioned medium from non-transfected 293 cells yielded similar amounts of TGF-β1 after IMAC. IMAC of purified TGF-β1 and the latency associated peptide showed that these proteins bound to the immobilized nickel ions. These data clearly demonstrate that TGF-β1 was co-purified by specific interactions with nickel, and not by specific interactions with fibrillin-1 fragments. Among various chromatographic methods tested for their ability to eliminate TGF-β1 from fibrillin-1 preparations, gel filtration under high salt conditions was highly effective. As various recombinant extracellular proteins purified in this fashion are frequently used for experiments that can be influenced by the presence of TGF-β1, these findings have far-reaching implications for the required chromatographic schemes and quality controls.     

Purification of proteins containing zinc finger domains using immobilized metal ion affinity chromatography

Heterologous proteins are frequently purified by immobilized metal ion affinity chromatography (IMAC) based on their modification with a hexa-histidine affinity tag (His-tag). The terminal His-tag can, however, alter functional properties of the tagged protein. Numerous strategies for the tag removal have been developed including chemical treatment and insertion of protease target sequences in the protein sequence. Instead of using these approaches, we took an advantage of natural interaction of zinc finger domains with metal ions to purify functionally similar retroviral proteins from two different retroviruses. We found that these proteins exhibited significantly different affinities to the immobilized metal ions, despite that both contain the same type of zinc finger motif (i.e., CCHC). While zinc finger proteins may differ in biochemical properties, the multitude of IMAC platforms should allow relatively simple yet specific method for their isolation in native state.     

Water-elutability of nucleic acids from metal-chelate affinity adsorbents: enhancement by control of surface charge density

Immobilized metal affinity chromatography (IMAC) is widely used for purification of proteins, especially "hexahistidine-tagged" recombinant proteins. We previously demonstrated the application of IMAC to selective capture of nucleic acids, including RNA, selectively-denatured genomic DNA, and PCR primers through interactions with purine bases exposed in single-stranded regions. We also found that the binding affinity of nucleic acids for IMAC adsorbents can be increased several-fold by addition of 20 volume% of neutral additives such as ethanol or DMSO. In the present work, it is demonstrated that bound nucleic acids can be effectively eluted with water instead of the usual imidazole-containing competitive eluants, when the surface density of negative charges is enhanced by operation at alkaline pH, or by deliberate metal-underloading of the anionic chelating ligands. With enhanced negative surface charge density, nucleic acid adsorption can be made strongly dependent on the presence of adsorption-promoting additives and/or repulsion-shielding salts, and removal of these induces elution. Complete water-elutability is demonstrated for baker's yeast RNA bound to 10% Cu(II)- underloaded IDA Chelating Sepharose in a binding buffer of 20 mM HEPES, 240 mM NaCl, pH 7. Water elutability will significantly enhance the utility of IMAC in nucleic acid separations.     

Structural analysis and classification of native proteins from E. coli commonly co-purified by immobilised metal affinity chromatography

Immobilised metal affinity chromatography (IMAC) is the most widely used technique for single-step purification of recombinant proteins. However, despite its use in the purification of heterologue proteins in the eubacteria Escherichia coli for decades, the presence of native E. coli proteins that exhibit a high affinity for divalent cations such as nickel, cobalt or copper has remained problematic. This is of particular relevance when recombinant molecules are not expressed at high levels or when their overexpression induces that of native bacterial proteins due to pleiotropism and/or in response to stress conditions. Identification of such contaminating proteins is clearly relevant to those involved in the purification of histidine-tagged proteins either at small/medium scale or in high-throughput processes. The work presented here reviews the native proteins from E. coli most commonly co-purified by IMAC, including Fur, Crp, ArgE, SlyD, GlmS, GlgA, ODO1, ODO2, YadF and YfbG. The binding of these proteins to metal-chelating resins can mostly be explained by their native metal-binding functions or their possession of surface clusters of histidine residues. However, some proteins fall outside these categories, implying that a further class of interactions may account for their ability to co-purify with histidine-tagged proteins. We propose a classification of these E. coli native proteins based on their physicochemical, structural and functional properties.     

金属螯合亲和层析分离蛋白质的研究

金属螯合亲和层析是近20年发展起来的一项新型分离技术。它以配基简单、吸附量大、分离条件温和、通用性强等特点,逐渐成为分离纯化蛋白质等生物工程产品最有效的技术之一。本文从单组分蛋白质入手,考查了pH值、铵离子浓度、不同铵盐等对蛋白质洗脱的影响,并进行了分析。还对不同的金属螯合柱和不同性质蛋白质的洗脱性能进行了研究,比较了不同金属离子与蛋白质亲和力的区别,为实际体系的分离研究打下了基础。     

Identification of native Escherichia coli BL21 (DE3) proteins that bind to immobilized metal affinity chromatography under high imidazole conditions and use of 2D-DIGE to evaluate contamination pools with respect to recombinant protein expression level

Immobilized metal affinity chromatography (IMAC) is a widely used purification tool for the production of active, soluble recombinant proteins. Escherichia coli proteins that routinely contaminate IMAC purifications have been characterized to date. The work presented here narrows that focus to the most problematic host proteins, those retaining nickel affinity under elevated imidazole conditions, using a single bind-and-elute step. Two-dimensional difference gel electrophoresis, a favored technique for resolving complex protein mixtures and evaluating their expression, here discerns variation in the soluble extract pools that are loaded in IMAC and the remaining contaminants with respect to varied levels of recombinant protein expression. Peptidyl-prolyl isomerase SlyD and catabolite activator protein (CAP) are here shown to be the most persistent contaminants and have greater prevalence at low target protein expression.     

Structural analysis and classification of native proteins from E. coli commonly co-purified by immobilised metal affinity chromatography

Immobilised metal affinity chromatography (IMAC) is the most widely used technique for single-step purification of recombinant proteins. However, despite its use in the purification of heterologue proteins in the eubacteria Escherichia coli for decades, the presence of native E. coli proteins that exhibit a high affinity for divalent cations such as nickel, cobalt or copper has remained problematic. This is of particular relevance when recombinant molecules are not expressed at high levels or when their overexpression induces that of native bacterial proteins due to pleiotropism and/or in response to stress conditions. Identification of such contaminating proteins is clearly relevant to those involved in the purification of histidine-tagged proteins either at small/medium scale or in high-throughput processes. The work presented here reviews the native proteins from E. coli most commonly co-purified by IMAC, including Fur, Crp, ArgE, SlyD, GlmS, GlgA, ODO1, ODO2, YadF and YfbG. The binding of these proteins to metal-chelating resins can mostly be explained by their native metal-binding functions or their possession of surface clusters of histidine residues. However, some proteins fall outside these categories, implying that a further class of interactions may account for their ability to co-purify with histidine-tagged proteins. We propose a classification of these E. coli native proteins based on their physicochemical, structural and functional properties.     

Engineering Escherichia coli BL21(DE3) derivative strains to minimize E. coli protein contamination after purification by immobilized metal affinity chromatography

Recombinant His-tagged proteins expressed in Escherichia coli and purified by immobilized metal affinity chromatography (IMAC) are commonly coeluted with native E. coli proteins, especially if the recombinant protein is expressed at a low level. The E. coli contaminants display high affinity to divalent nickel or cobalt ions, mainly due to the presence of clustered histidine residues or biologically relevant metal binding sites. To improve the final purity of expressed His-tagged protein, we engineered E. coli BL21(DE3) expression strains in which the most recurring contaminants are either expressed with an alternative tag or mutated to decrease their affinity to divalent cations. The current study presents the design, engineering, and characterization of two E. coli BL21(DE3) derivatives, NiCo21(DE3) and NiCo22(DE3), which express the endogenous proteins SlyD, Can, ArnA, and (optionally) AceE fused at their C terminus to a chitin binding domain (CBD) and the protein GlmS, with six surface histidines replaced by alanines. We show that each E. coli CBD-tagged protein remains active and can be efficiently eliminated from an IMAC elution fraction using a chitin column flowthrough step, while the modification of GlmS results in loss of affinity for nickel-containing resin. The "NiCo" strains uniquely complement existing methods for improving the purity of recombinant His-tagged protein.     

A proteomic approach to identify phosphoproteins encoded by cDNA libraries

We report a method for large-scale rapid analysis of phosphoproteins in tissues or cells by combining immobilized metal affinity chromatography (IMAC) with phage display cDNA library screening. We expressed a testis cDNA library as fusion proteins on phage and, using IMAC, enriched for sequences encoding phosphoproteins. Selected clones were polymerase chain reaction amplified and sequenced. The majority of the clones sequenced (80%) encoded known proteins previously identified as phosphoproteins. Immunoblotting with phosphotyrosine antibodies confirmed that some of the selected sequences encoded tyrosine phosphorylated proteins when expressed on phage. An advantage of this method is the rapid identification of phosphoproteins encoded by a cDNA library, which can identify proteins that are potentially phosphorylated in vivo. When this method is combined with limited enzymatic digestion and tandem mass spectrometric techniques, the specific phosphorylation site in a protein can be identified. This technique can be used in proteomics studies to effectively detect phosphorylated proteins and avoid time-consuming and expensive peptide sequencing.     

Homologous human blood protein separation using immobilized metal affinity chromatography: protein C separation from prothrombin with application to the separation of factor IX and prothrombin.

Protein C (PC) is a natural anticoagulant and antithrombotic present in human blood at a concentration of 4 microg/mL. Its deficiency can result in excessive clotting and thrombosis. Protein C can be obtained from human blood plasma; however, there are other coagulant proteins in blood, including prothrombin (factor II), which is present in relatively large amounts and is one of the most active components. Protein C and prothrombin are homologous proteins with similar biochemical features; therefore, immunoaffinity chromatography is used for their separation. However, this technology is very expensive, protein C recovery and activity is low, and contamination problems with mouse antibody are likely. Immobilized metal affinity chromatography (IMAC) utilizes the protein metal-binding properties for protein separation. Protein C has twelve surface-accessible histidines, which are the major metal-binding groups for IMAC separation. After investigating metal ion-binding properties of protein C, we used an IDA-Cu column to separate protein C and prothrombin. Following protein adsorption to the column, prothrombin was washed out using a sodium phosphate buffer containing 2 mM imidazole and protein C was recovered with 15 mM imidazole in the buffer. The mild elution condition allows a high protein C activity and a high recovery. Also, this technology introduces no immunoglobulins, and it is relatively inexpensive. IMAC could replace the immunoaffinity technology for the large-scale separation of protein C from blood plasma Cohn Fraction IV-1. In addition, this work demonstrates a significant application of this technology for the separation of factor IX from prothrombin. Prothrombin has proven to be a harmful contaminant in factor IX cocktails that have been administered to humans in the treatment of hemophilia B.     

Reduction of non-specific binding in Ga(III) immobilized metal affinity chromatography for phosphopeptides by using endoproteinase glu-C as the digestive enzyme

The selectivity of immobilized metal affinity chromatography (IMAC) systems for the purification of phosphopeptides is poor. This is particularly a problem with tryptic digests of proteins where a large number of acidic peptides are produced that also bind during IMAC. The hypothesis examined in this work was that the selectivity of IMAC columns for phosphopeptides could be increased by using endoproteinase glu-C (glu-C) for protein digestion. Glu-C cleaves proteins at acidic residues and should reduce the number of acidic residues in peptides. This method was successfully applied to a mixture of model proteins and bovine milk. The percentage of phosphorylated peptides selected from proteolytic digests of the milk sample was increased from 40% with trypsin to 70% with glu-C. Additionally, this method was coupled with stable isotope coding methods to quantitatively compare the concentration of phosphoproteins between samples.     

Interactions of proteins with immobilized metal ions: a comparative analysis using various isotherm models

Immobilized metal ion affinity chromatography (IMAC) is now a widely accepted technique for the purification of natural and recombinant therapeutic products and is beginning to find industrial applications. The design, optimization, and scale-up of a chromatographic process using IMAC demands a thorough understanding to be developed regarding the fundamental factors governing the various interactions between immobilized metal ions and proteins. Consequently, there is an immediate need to find out a theory that is able to account for these interactions most efficiently in a qualitative as well as a quantitative manner. In view of this requirement, the interactions of several model proteins (lysozyme, ovalbumin, bovine serum albumin, conalbumin, and wheat germ agglutinin) with metal (Cu(II), Ni(II))-chelated IDA (iminodiacetate) and tris(2-aminoethyl)amine were investigated. The adsorption data were analyzed using four isotherm models, viz., the general affinity interaction theory/Langmuir model, the Freundlich model, the Temkin model, and the Langmuir-Freundlich model, and the sorption parameters were computed. Although the first three models were applicable to some protein-IMA-M(II) systems, the Langmuir-Freundlich model appeared to be the most efficient model for explaining the interactions of proteins with IMA-M(II) gels. Also, this model was able to explain cooperativity and binding heterogeneity in quantitative terms. It is envisaged that this analysis would be useful in developing an improved understanding of protein-immobilized metal ion interactions and providing guidelines for designing preparative-scale separations using IMAC.     

Immobilized metal ion affinity chromatography: a review on its applications

After 35?years of development, immobilized metal ion affinity chromatography (IMAC) has evolved into a popular protein purification technique. This review starts with a discussion of its mechanism and advantages. It continues with its applications which include the purification of histidine-tagged proteins, natural metal-binding proteins, and antibodies. IMAC used in conjunction with mass spectroscopy for phosphoprotein fractionation and proteomics is also covered. Finally, this review addresses the developments, limitations, and considerations of IMAC in the biopharmaceutical industry.