A new method of synthesizing biopolymeric affinity ligands.

(1) A new concept for producing soluble polymeric affinity ligands is proposed and exemplified. By solid-phase synthesis, an insoluble hydrophilic polymer is converted into an affinity gel. The gel is hydrolytically degraded to water-soluble affinity polymeric ligands which are recovered and purified. (2) A water-soluble biopolymeric metal-affinity carrier based on an iminodiacetic acid (IDA) derivative of dextran has been synthesized through the modification of Sephadex G-200 by IDA, followed by hydrolysis with dextranase and size-exclusion-chromatographic purification of the high-molecular-mass fragments. (3) The molecular size of the soluble products as a function of hydrolysis time with dextranase from Penicillium sp. was determined. The range of molecular size of the biopolymeric chelating ligand varies from around 200 Da to greater than 580 kDa. (4) The influence of three metal ions chelated with the Sephadex derivative on the hydrolysis rate and the molecular-size distribution of end products was studied. Eu3+ was found to improve the rate of solubilization. Ni2+ and Cu2+ decreased the hydrolysis rate, as compared with that of the metal-free IDA-Sephadex. (5) The method introduced here has the potential of being developed and applied as a general technology for synthesis of soluble multifunctional affinity ligands. Such ligands should be useful for liquid-phase extraction as well as for the synthesis of adsorbents with localized multiple binding sites. Other possible fields of applications are to be found in medicine, where they could be used for slow drug delivery or detoxification, and in analytical chemistry, where they could be used in various assays.