High performance affinity chromatography.

The manuscript was prepared as an invited chapter for Advances and Perspectives in High Performance Liquid Chromatography (C. Horvath, editor). The essential art of affinity chromatography lies in the immobilization, on the chromatographic packing media, of an active biological ligand which will "recognize", selectively retain, and thereby separate only the compounds of interest from the myriad of other species which constitute the sample. Affinity chromatography is a very versatile methodology and the possible systems to which it can be applied are defined by the biological ligand chosen. Ligands such as amino acids, nucleotides, proteins, and antibodies have been used for the separation and purification of proteins, nucleic acids, carbohydrates, cells, and viruses.