The rates at which biological interactions occur can provide important information on the mechanism and behavior of such processes in living systems. This review will discuss how affinity chromatography can be used as a tool to examine the kinetics of biological interactions. This approach, referred to here as biointeraction chromatography, uses a column with an immobilized binding agent to examine the association or dissociation of this agent with other compounds. The use of HPLC-based affinity columns in kinetic studies has received particular attention in recent years. Advantages of using HPLC with affinity chromatography for this purpose include the ability to reuse the same ligand within a column for a large number of experiments, and the good precision and accuracy of this approach. A number of techniques are available for kinetic studies through the use of affinity columns and biointeraction chromatography. These approaches include plate height measurements, peak profiling, peak fitting, split-peak measurements, and peak decay analysis. The general principles for each of these methods are discussed in this review and some recent applications of these techniques are presented. The advantages and potential limitations of each approach are also considered.

The binding of drugs with proteins in blood, serum or plasma is an important process in determining the activity, distribution, rate of excretion, and toxicity of drugs in the body. Highperformance affinity chromatography (HPAC) has received a great deal of interest as a means for studying these interactions. This review examines the various techniques that have been used in HPAC to examine drug-protein binding and discusses the types of information that can be obtained through this approach. A comparison of these techniques with traditional methods for binding studies (e.g., equilibrium dialysis and ultrafiltration) will also be presented. The use of HPAC with specific serum proteins and binding agents will then be discussed, including human serum albumin and α 1 -acid glycoprotein. Several examples from the literature are provided to illustrate the applications of such research. Recent developments in this field are also described, such as the use of improved immobilization techniques, new data analysis methods, techniques for working for directly with complex biological samples, and work with immobilized lipoproteins. The relative advantages and limitations of the methods that are described will be considered and the possible use of these techniques in the high-throughput screening or characterization of drugprotein binding will be discussed.

A system was developed for measuring the noncomplexed or free fraction of a hormone in serum based on the combined use of ultrafast immunoextraction with a chromatographic displacement immunoassay. This approach was tested using L-thyroxine as a model analyte. Items considered in the development of this technique included the choice of immunoassay format and the selection of conditions for removal of thyroxine's free fraction from samples without significant interference from its protein-bound fraction. The final method had an effective extraction time of 90 ms and allowed the amount of free thyroxine to be determined within 30 s after sample injection. The limit of detection was 6 pM (S/N = 3) for a 100-microL sample, and the linear response extended up to at least 100 pM. This technique gave good correlation versus reference methods when used for the determination of free thyroxine in serum samples. Advantages of this method included its speed and its ability to analyze a sample with no pretreatment other than standard filtration. The same approach could be adapted for other hormones or drugs by using appropriate antibodies and labeled analogues for such agents.

A chromatographic method was developed for measuring free drug fractions based on the use of an ultrafast immunoextraction/displacement assay (UFIDA) with near-infrared (NIR) fluorescent labels. This approach was evaluated by using it to determine the free fraction of phenytoin in serum or samples containing the binding protein human serum albumin (HSA). Items considered in the design of this method included the dissociation rate of HSA-bound phenytoin, the rate of capture of free phenytoin by immunoextraction microcolumns, the behavior of NIR fluorescent labels in a displacement format, and the overall response and stability of the resulting assay. In the final UFIDA method, the free fraction of phenytoin was extracted in approximately 100 ms by a microcolumn containing a small layer of anti-phenytoin antibodies. This gave a displacement peak for a NIRfluorescent labeled analog of phenytoin that appeared within 2−3 min of sample injection, creating a signal proportional to the amount of free phenytoin in the sample. The UFIDA method provided results within 1−5% of those determined by ultrafiltration for reference samples. The lower limit of detection was 570 pM and the linear range extended up to 10 μM. This approach is not limited to phenytoin but can be adapted for other analytes through the use of appropriate antibodies and labeled analogs.

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