Eliminating amino acid and peptide interference in high-performance anion-exchange pulsed amperometric detection glycoprotein monosaccharide analysis

The monosaccharide content of a glycoprotein is often determined by acid hydrolysis at elevated temperature and subsequent high pH chromatography of the released, underivatized monosaccharides on pellicular anion-exchange resin (HPAE) using pulsed amperometric detection (PAD). We have found that for glycoproteins with low levels of glycosylation, monosaccharide quantitation can be compromised by amino acids fouling the working electrode surface. Specifically, lysine elutes on the CarboPac PA1 column just prior to galactosamine, whereas remaining amino acids and most peptides elute after the monosaccharides and do not interfere with monosaccharide quantification. A direct comparison of PAD vs Abs(215) detection of lysine using the CarboPac PA1 column as the separator reveals that lysine does not cleanly come off the working electrode. The monosaccharide response inhibition caused by lysine could be corrected by the posthydrolysis addition of a rhamnose internal standard and the determination of ''correction factors.'' We have developed a guard column with an altered selectivity for amino acids which, when used with a new separator, causes lysine to elute after the monosaccharides and also causes hydrophobic amino acids to elute further after the monosaccharides. Together the new separator and guard columns solve the lysine fouling problem, reduce sample-related baseline noise, and reduce the magnitude of correction factors. (C) 1996 Academic Press, Inc.