Accessibility and multivalency of immobilized Cibacron blue F3GA.

The effect of immobilized dye concentration on protein complexation was observed using zonal chromatography. A monomeric protein, octopine dehydrogenase, was retained by a single interaction to a Sepharose CL-6B column containing 11.6 mM immobilized Cibacron blue F3GA. By contrast, a tetrameric protein, lactate dehydrogenase, was retained by the same column by multiple interactions. The degree of multiple interactions was found to systematically increase with increasing immobilized dye concentration. The concentration of immobilized dye accessible to protein was found to be inversely related to the concentration of ionic components in the solvent. Zonal chromatographic measurements of free dye and unconjugated matrix suggest that increasing the concentration of ionic components promotes the adsorption of immobilized dye to the adjacent matrix surface. Such adsorption markedly affects both the capacity of an immobilized dye column and the multiplicity of its interaction with oligomeric proteins.