Automated Trapping Column Exchanger for High-Throughput Nanoflow Liquid Chromatography.

As compared to conventional high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) techniques, nanoflow HPLC exhibits improved sensitivity and limits of detection. However, nanoflow HPLC suffers from low throughput due to instrument failure (e.g., fitting fatigue and trapping column failure), limiting the utility of the technique for clinical and industrial applications. To increase the robustness of nanoflow HPLC, we have developed and tested a trapping column exchanging robot for autonomous interchange of trapping columns. This robot makes reproducible, automated connections between the active trapping column and the rest of the HPLC system. The intertrapping column retention time is shown to be sufficiently reproducible for scheduled selected reaction monitoring assays to be performed on different trapping columns without rescheduling the selection windows.