Protein adsorption-desorption on electrospray capillary walls--no influence on aggregate distribution.

Adsorbed proteins on walls of glass capillaries used for electrospray (ES) can desorb and potentially affect size distributions and, thus, quantification of aggregates of proteins. In this study we use differential mobility analysis (DMA) to investigate the size distribution of various proteins eluting from bare and passivated glass capillaries. We found no significant differences in aggregate distributions from unpassivated capillaries at 'steady state' when compared to aggregate distributions from passivated capillaries implying that desorbing proteins do not influence protein aggregate distribution. Surface passivation with gelatin was found to be considerably more effective in limiting adsorption of two antibodies (Rituxan and polyclonal human IgG) compared to passivation with BSA. Gelatin passivation was also found to be stable for a few days and from a pH range of 4.8-9.0.