From particles to monoliths: Solid support alternatives for online affinity selection and preconcentration in capillary electrophoresis

VIZIOLI NM

Guarujá, Brasil

Conferencia; 11th Symposium on Biomedical, Biopharmaceutical and Industrial Applications of Capillary Electrophoresis and Microchip Technology, LACE 2005; 2005

The analysis of compounds at trace levels in simple or complex matrices requires analytical methodologies highly selective and sensitive for their identification and/or quantification. Selective adsorbents bonded to solid supports for CE methods have embraced as an attractive alternative to conventional separation techniques. Located near the inlet of the capillary, microcartridge devices can be used for concentration enrichment, isolation or extraction of analytes as well as to achieve microreactions allowing the on-line analysis of reaction products. Many commercial particle-based sorbents are available for packing microcolumns to be joint to the separation capillary. Despite the many advantages of using affinity immobilized ligands, some technical problems remain not totally resolved. Particularly, much effort has been expended toward the development of new designs of microcolumns that do not require frits. Monolithic capillary columns based on a continuous and porous media are one of the most competitive chromatographic column technologies because of their unique properties like high lineal flux velocities and the non-requirement of frits. After their synthesis by in situ polymerization performed within a mold, typically a segment of capillary tubing, the surface of polymeric materials can be chemically modified with functional groups for selective compound retention. Fritless monolithic microextractors coupled to CE emerged as a very useful tool for solving analytical problems in diverse areas such as biopharmacy, biotechnology, and proteomics. In this presentation, the application of different microextractor devices to peptide and protein analysis will be discussed in detail.