Grafting glycidyl methacrylate to Sepharose gel for fabricating high-capacity protein anion exchangers

• Polymer-grafted anion exchangers of 14 chain densities and/or lengths were fabricated.
• There was a specific ionic capacity that offered maximum protein binding capacity.
• The highest static protein capacity reached 260 mg/mL, twice that of Q Sepharose.
• The dynamic binding capacity of the resin was also much higher than Q Sepharose.

To develop ion exchangers of high protein adsorption capacity, we have herein introduced atom transfer radical polymerization (ATRP) method to graft glycidyl methacrylate (GMA) onto Sepharose FF gel. GMA-grafted Sepharose FF resins of four grafting densities and different grafting chain lengths were obtained by adjusting reaction conditions. The epoxy groups on the grafted chains were functionalized by modification with diethylamine (DEA), leading to the fabrication of Sepharose-based anion exchangers of 14 different grafting densities and/or grafting chain lengths. The resins were first characterized for the effects of grafting density, chain length and ionic strength on pore sizes by inverse size exclusion chromatography. Then, the resins were evaluated by adsorption equilibria of bovine serum albumin (BSA) as a function of ionic capacity (IC) (chain length) at individual grafting densities. It was observed that at each grafting density there was a specific IC value (chain length) that offered the maximum equilibrium capacity. Of the resins with maximum values at individual grafting densities, the resin of the second grafting density with an IC value of 330 mmol/L (denoted as FF-Br2-pG-D330) showed the highest capacity, 264 mg/mL, about two times higher than that of the traditional ungrafted resin Q Sepharose FF (137 mg/mL). This resin also showed the most favorable uptake kinetics among the resins of similar IC values but different grafting densities, or of the same grafting density but different IC values. Effects of ionic strength showed that the capacities of FF-Br2-pG-D330 were much higher than Q Sepharose FF at a wide range of NaCl concentrations (0–200 mmol/L), and the uptake rates of the two resins were similar in the ionic strength range. Therefore, the dynamic binding capacity values of BSA on FF-Br2-pG-D330 were much higher than Q Sepharose FF as demonstrated at different residence times and ionic strengths. Taken together, the research has proved the success in the fabrication of high-capacity protein anion exchangers by grafting GMA onto Sepharose gel.