Handbook of Size Exclusion Chromatography and Related ...

15
Size Exclusion
Chromatography of
Proteins
John O. Baker, William S. Adney and Michael E. Himmel
National Renewable Energy Laboratory
Golden, Colorado, U.S.A.
Michelle Chen
Wyatt Technology Corporation
Santa Barbara, California, U.S.A.
1 INTRODUCTION
Researchers in the biophysical sciences have been concerned with the rapid and
gentle isolation of macromolecules of all sizes and types. Although the exact dates
of early thoughts on the subject are difficult to place, records from Discussions of
the Faraday Society in 1949 (1) reflect on both speculation and evidence that
porous media may be useful in separating biomolecules by size. The chronology of
the subsequent discovery of the particle-sieving effects of starch and crosslinked
dextran gels in the 1950s at the Institute of Biochemistry, University of Uppsala,
Sweden, is well reviewed in a recent article by Hagel and Janson (2). The
separation and collection of many water-soluble biopolymers has since been
possible using the principle first called gel filtration. Sephadex w (Pharmacia,
Uppsala, Sweden) was the first commercial separation media made from water
© 2004 by Marcel Dekker, Inc.