Optimization of in-house packing of nano liquid chromatography columns - How to pack low-cost nano liquid chromatography columns?

Abstract

Liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry (LC-MS) approaches for measurement of biomarkers are increasing in popularity due to the selectivity and sensitivity. To match the detection limits of the immunoassay approaches (such as enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) and Western Blot (WB)), LC columns with narrow inner diameter are preferable. The goal of this work was to establish a simple and low cost slurry packing procedure to obtain 50 µm inner diameter (ID) x 150 mm particle packed nanoLC columns with comparable performance to a 75 µm ID x 150 mm commercial nanoLC column. Slurry packing with 2.6 µm solid-core reversed phase particles was performed with an in-house made pressure bomb system (< 200 bar). Column efficiency was measured as peak capacity (number of peaks separated in a gradient window, PC), calculated using peptides from tryptic digest of human serum albumin (HSA). To maintain sedimentation of particles, heat or magnetic stirring was needed. 80/20 % acetonitrile (ACN)/water as slurry solvent was found to give both the fastest packing and the most efficient columns measured as PC (89 ± 11 at 10 % of the peak height for columns packed with magnetic stirring). Nevertheless, the column performance was quite similar for all slurry solvents and packing approaches. “Pico Frit” column housings from New Objective and two frit-making procedures (polymerization and sintering of silica particles) for standard column housings were compared, but none outperformed the others. The PC of the commercial column packed with the same material as the in-house packed columns, was approximately 30 % higher than the best performing in-house packed column (102 vs 136). However, the retention time repeatability between replicates was equal to the commercial column for most columns packed with 80/20 % ACN/water. In conclusion, this work presents a fast and low cost packing procedure of nanoLC columns with similar performance to commercial nanoLC columns.