Abstract

Countercurrent chromatography (CCC) is a unique liquid-liquid partition chromatography without any solid supports. In this paper, the progress for preparative separation of proteins and peptides by CCC has been reviewed. It covers the recent development of CCC instruments, including hydrostatic and hydrodynamic instruments, the optimization of two-phase solvent system, as well as the recent applications in separation of proteins and peptides. For biological purifications in CCC, the use of pH-zone-refining separation mode, and/or the use of aqueous two-phase systems, have been demonstrated to be the most effective protocols and exhibited potential possibility for sample pretreatments in proteomics studies.

Keywords: Aqueous two-phase systems, countercurrent chromatography, hydrostatic column, hydrodynamic column, peptides, pH-zone-refining, proteins.