Pharmacia FPLC System

This column chromatography system automates the separation and purification of semi-preparative amounts of the compound of interest, typically a protein. The system uses aqueous buffers and fairly low pressures, and is housed in a "cold box" so that chromatographic runs can be done at 4°C, thus helping to preserve biological activity. The two pumps allow for gradient elutions (for example, increasing salt concentration on an ion exchange column), and the fraction collector permits automated collection of fractions from the column by volume, time or peak detection. There are currently a choice of five different columns: Superdex 75 and Superose 12 for gel filtration (fractionation range approximately 3-70FD and 1-300KD respectively); Mono Q for anion exchanges; mono S for cation exchange; and phenyl sepharose, a hydrophobic interaction matrix.