Capillary Electrophoretic Separation of Poly(ethylene glycol)-Modified Granulocyte-Colony Stimulating Factor

We evaluated the utility of capillary electrophoretic methods for analyzing poly(ethylene glycol) (PEG)-modified granulocyte-colony stimulating factor (G-CSF), a long-acting form of G-CSF for the treatment of cancer therapy-induced neutropenia. Low- and high-molecular-weight PEG-G-CSF conjugates prepared with aldehyde-activated PEG-5K and PEG-20K were separated by high-performance size-exclusion chromatography (HP-SEC), capillary zone electrophoresis (CZE), and sodium dodecyl sulfate-capillary gel electrophoresis (SDS-CGE). HPSEC showed low resolution for separating mono- and di-PEG-G-CSFs. SDS-CGE had higher resolution, but required a long analysis and had low peak efficiency. CZE could successfully separate both PEG-5K- and PEG-20K-conjugated G-CSFs with a running time of 20 min and high peak efficiency. In conclusion, CZE was better than SDS-CGE for separating PEG-G-CSF conjugates and will be useful for PEGylation studies, such as reaction monitoring for optimization of the PEGylation reaction, and purity and stability tests of PEG-G-CSF.