Prediction of protein retention times in gradient hydrophobic interaction chromatographic systems

A two-step methodology has been developed for the prediction of protein retention time in linear-gradient HIC systems. Isocratic retention parameters were determined from ln(k′)-salt concentration plots for a number of commercially available proteins with a range of properties. Quantitative structure property relationship (QSPR) models based on a support vector machine (SVM) approach were generated for predicting isocratic retention parameters for proteins not included in the model generation. The predicted parameters were then used to calculate protein gradient retention times and the results indicate that this approach is well suited for predicting experimental gradient retention data. The approach presented in this paper may have implications for HIC methods development at both the bench and process scales.