The increasing progression of biopharmaceutical-based therapies highlights the demand for efficient chromatographic methods that can be used to purify the desired biomolecules (e.g., nucleic acids, enzymes, or monoclonal antibodies) which are presently under consideration in clinical trials or approved by the Food and Drug Administration. These molecules present distinct chemical and structural properties, which are critical cues for the development and production of adequate chromatographic supports. Until now, it has not been possible to fully control the characteristics of the chromatographic matrices to assure the total reproducibility of their structure and packing. Meanwhile, three-dimensional printing (3DP) is in the early stage of its use in the production of chromatographic supports as a fast, very precise, and reproducible methodology. Although 3DP can provide excellent performance properties to the chromatographic structures, it cannot, per se, lead to high-quality pharmaceutical products. However, the association of affinity ligands, such as amino acids, which is possible in 3DP, could enable the attainment of high-purity yields of the desired molecules. Beyond the amino acids most widely studied as chromatographic ligands, arginine has been successfully immobilized on different chromatographic supports (namely, agarose bead matrices, macroporous matrices, and monoliths) to achieve extra-pure gene therapy products. In this research, we studied the immobilization of arginine on 3DP chromatographic supports, evaluating the stability of the ligand/chromatographic support linkage under different chromatographic conditions to determine the robustness of these new prototypes. Moreover, we also applied plasmid DNA samples to these supports to observe the practical behaviour of the developed arginine 3DP chromatographic structures.
Keywords: 3D printing; additive manufacturing; arginine; chromatographic supports; chromatography; fused deposition modelling.