ABSTRACT
Afnity chromatography has been used for decades as a selective means for the purication and analysis of chemicals in biological systems (Hage and Ruhn 2006; Hage 2006; Turkova 1978; Scouten 1981; Parikh and Cuatrecasas 1985; Walters 1985). The method can be dened as a type of liquid chromatography in which a biologically-related agent is used as the stationary phase (Ettre 1993; Hage and Ruhn 2006). This biologically-related agent, referred to as the afnity ligand, can consist of an immobilized sequence of DNA or RNA, a protein or enzyme, a biomimetic dye, an enzyme substrate or inhibitor, or a small target molecule, among others (Hage 2006). Many afnity separations have been conducted using low-performance supports such as agarose or polyacrylamide (Gustavsson and Larsson 2006). However, HPLC media such as silica or monolithic supports can also be used as the support material in afnity separations, resulting in a technique that is known as high performance afnity chromatography (HPAC) (Hage 2002; Schiel et al. 2006; Gustavsson and Larsson 2006; Mallik 2006; Hage 2006).
