Intervent dilution chromatography: concept for separation of strongly interacting macromolecules.

Intervent dilution chromatography separates interacting macromolecules by subjecting them to a dynamic environment in which the association constant is continuously varied. The dynamic environment is produced by using the sieving properties of a gel to repeatedly propel the molecular complex across an intervent boundary. Behind the boundary, at high intervent concentrations, the complex dissociates; ahead of the boundary, the component molecules are separated by adsorption processes. By selective adjustment of the intervent composition of the sample and the conditions of column equilibration, the process is adapted to a particular need. This report describes the chromatographic concept and shows how parameters are adjusted to obtain the desired separation. In this study a particularly difficult separation, i.e., the separation of ribosomal proteins from ribosomal RNA, is chosen to illustrate the power of the procedure.