Steady-migration retention characteristics of peptides under gradient elution： application towards a dynamic separation method for minor-adjustments of the retention of peptides in RPLC

Minor-adjustment of the retention of peptides, induced by varying the mobile phase flow-rate(MPF-R), is a new dynamic separation method for simultaneously and rapidly identifying and improving the selectivity of hidden and overlapping peptide peaks. It can also-stabilize the reverse elution order of some pair-peaks under gradient elution in reverse phase liquid chromatography. The retention characteristics of peptides under gradient elution in RPLC was firstly found to be dominated by two variables of the steady region(SR) and migration region(MR). The changes in peptide retention induced by varying the MPF-R can be attributed to changes in the rate of bond breaking of multiple molecular interactions of peptides from the SR and of the mass transfer of peptides from the stationary phase to the mobile phase in the MR. The two dynamic variables were also found to independently depend on the type of peptide. Desirable results were obtained using six standard oligopeptides and a real sample of trypsin-digested lysozyme.It is expected that the quality control of peptide drugs, high dispersion of peptide peaks in peptide mapping and "bottom-up MS"in proteomics will be improved by this method, even enabling peptide purification on a preparative scale in industry.

Stereoselective interactions of chiral dipeptides on amylose based chiral stationary phases

Dipeptides are stereo-specifically involved in several biological functions that are challenging to separate enantiomerically. Elution order of enantiomers is an important issue in chiral chromatography. Amylose tris-(3,5-dimethylphenylcarbamate) chiral stationary phase(CSP) is the best and most-widely-used CSP in chiral separations, but experimental data of enantiomeric separation of dipeptides on this CSP is lacking. Simulation studies were conducted to determine the order of elution and the chiral recognition mechanism of didpetides on this CSP. Results indicated that the docking energy of SR-enantiomers were higher than SS-antipodes. The range of docking energies for SR-enantiomers was -7.44 to -5.92 kcal/mol with CSP, but -7.15 to -5.87 kcal/mol for SS-stereoisomers. Therefore it is predicted that SS-enantiomer will elute first, followed by SR-antipode. Furthermore, hydrogen bondings, van der Waal's interactions and electrostatic interactions were observed among SR- and SSenantiomers and chiral grooves of CSP. The number of hydrogen bonds was one in each enantiomer binding except S-Ala-R-Tyr, which contained two hydrogen bonds. No hydrogen bond was found in S-Ala-R-Trp, S-Leu-S-Trp, and S-Leu-S-Tyr dipeptides bindings. The chiral recognition mechanisms dictate different strengths of stereoselective bindings of the enantiomers on CSP.