How does ion exchange chromatography work?
in ion exchange chromatography you separate molecules based on charge. Let’s say you want to isolate a positively charged protein. You run a sample of protein through a column which has negatively charged beads in it. All of the positively charged protein will stay in the column while the – charged proteins will go right through. Now you run buffers through the column which have different pH values. As the pH changes, some of the positive proteins will become negative and fall off the negatively charged beads. Once you have all of these samples, you’ll need to analyze them, but that’s the jist. You protein of interest will eventually fall off as you continually change the pH in one direction.
