L-histidine functionalized multi-walled carbon nanotubes for on-line affinity separation and purification of immunoglobulin G in serum.

In this work, the multi-walled carbon nanotubes were covalently functionalized with L-histidine (His-MWNTs) as online pseudospecific affinity adsorbent for immunoglobulin G (IgG) separation and purification with a simple surface modification method, using 1-ethyl-3-(3-dimethyaminopropyl) carbodiimide hydrochloride (EDC) and N-hydroxysuccinimde (NHS). The affinity of the His-MWNTs toward IgG was investigated in a microcolumn incorporated into a sequential injection system, which also involves an UV spectrometer with a flow cell for online real-time detection. The incorporation of histidine as affinity groups noticeably increased the selectivity and binding capacity of MWNTs for IgG and the His-MWNTs exhibited high retention and recovery rate of nearly 100% under optimized conditions. This separation and enrichment process made it possible to determine a lower concentration range of IgG in serum from 1.0-33 μg/mL with a detection limit of 0.3 μg/mL with a sampling volume of 4.0 mL. The static and dynamic adsorption capacities obtained were 267 mg of IgG/g His-MWNTs and 35 mg/g in aqueous solution, respectively, which are among the highest reported results in literatures employing affinity separation methods. Desorption of IgG from His-MWNTs could be accomplished by lowering the pH to 1.5 with glycine-HCl buffer. The practical application of His-MWNTs for separation of IgG in serum was evaluated with sodium dodecyl sulfate-polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis which confirmed that the purity of recovered IgG from human serum was over 85% and better than a commercial product.