Hi,

There is a gray area, where you would refrain from talking about low-MW 
contaminants. PEG3350 will be a highly elongated polymer, with way higher 
hydrodynamic radius than a globular molecule of the same MW. It also will bind 
a lot of H2O. Hence, it might not go through concentrators (but could actually 
get concentrated), and also could still be present in the protein fractions 
after GF. 

But I might be wrong, of course.

Petri

On 20 Aug 2014, at 20:48, Alexander Aleshin <[email protected]> wrote:

> Dear Remie,
> I meant application of GF as an ion exchange column. You can use special ion 
> exchange columns, but our lab often uses preparative GF columns for this 
> task.  We just load the column, keeping sample volume <  the void volume. 
> Thus, we do not  concentrate a protein before an ion exchange, only after it. 
> But that is inevitable. When I am afraid to loose a protein during its 
> concentrating, I concentrate shoulders of the eluted peak first, then add a 
> central part. 
> 
> My point was that it might be okay to exchange buffers by concentrating a 
> protein, but other molecules like Peg3K would not penetrate the membrane as 
> well as water or salts do, as a result their reduction in concentration will 
> be unreliable. Like, you do a 10 fold concentrating/delusion of a solution, 
> but the final concentration of PEG3K will drop only by 3 fold... 
> 
> Alex
> 
> On Aug 19, 2014, at 9:42 AM, Remie wrote:
> 
> Hi Alex, 
> I disagree with you even though GF is always the last step in my 
> purifications. 
> Because it involves concentration before and after the GF so during the 
> concentration you can already be doing the buffer exchange.
> You use GF when you want to purify other protein impurities if they are 
> different sizes. Of course it has other uses too. But not quite practical for 
> just changing buffer also considering the amount of protein you could be 
> loosing along the process. If one is careful, centripreps are best for 
> concentrating and changing the buffer. I tell you this from experience with 
> large hard to express proteins.
> 
> Best of luck,
> Remie
> 
> On Aug 19, 2014, at 10:45 AM, Alexander Aleshin <[email protected]> 
> wrote:
> 
> Remie,
> Actually, concentrating of a protein solution is not the best approach to 
> removing low MW impurities, gel filtration chromatography is  more reliable 
> and ... faster.
> 
> Regards,
> Alex
> 
> On Aug 19, 2014, at 7:03 AM, Remie Fawaz-Touma wrote:
> 
> Hi Reza, I had to do this before. 
> 
> This protocol works for any PEG and any chemical to be removed from a 
> solution: buffer exchange into the new buffer you want your protein to be in. 
> There are ways to do that by 15 mL Amicon concentrators from millipore for 
> large volumes, or if your protein is already concentrated, there are some 
> small 0.5 mL concentrators from millipore as well.
> 
> The key is to keep your spinning at low speeds (concentrators manuals will 
> tell you) so you don’t precipitate or loose your protein. Check your protein 
> concentration every 2 hours just to make sure you are not loosing it on 
> concentrator surfaces and so on. 
> 
> Good Luck,
> Remie
> 
> On Aug 19, 2014, at 9:55 AM, Reza Khayat <[email protected]> wrote:
> 
> Hi,
> 
> Does anyone have a protocol for getting rid of PEG3350 from a protein sample? 
> 
> Best wishes,
> Reza
> 
> Reza Khayat, PhD
> Assistant Professor
> The City College of New York
> Department of Chemistry, MR-1135
> 160 Convent Avenue
> New York, NY  10031
> Tel. (212) 650-6070
> www.khayatlab.org
> 
> 
> 


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