Alliance Protein Laboratories has been offering light scattering analysis services since 2001. Tsutomu Arakawa, the President of A.P.L., introduced SEC-MALS to the biotech industry in 1991 after seeing it applied in the laboratory of Dr. Toshio Takagi at Osaka University. He and John Philo (our V.P.) pioneered new methods to analyze conjugated proteins (glycoproteins and PEGylated proteins) and deconvolute the masses of the peptide and conjugating species.

A.P.L. has completed scores of SEC-MALS and DLS analysis projects on proteins, peptides, nucleic acids, and other molecules. To our knowledge A.P.L. is the only contract laboratory in the U.S. to offer both of these light scattering methods. At A.P.L. all the light scattering experiments and interpretation are done by these experts who have 28 publications in this area.

Further background on SEC-MALS, DLS, and their applications can be found here.

For SEC-MALS A.P.L. has a Wyatt Technology miniDAWN™ TREOS MALS light scattering detector used together with both a refractive index detector (Wyatt Optilab rEX) and a UV absorbance detector. For batch-mode DLS we have a Wyatt Dynapro MS/X with Peltier temperature control [picture]. Turn-around for LS analysis is typically 2-4 weeks.

Before even considering using another company for LS analysis see questions you need to ask a biophysical lab.

Below are a few of our publications about light scattering (more can be found on the Further Reading page):

Philo, J. S. (2009). A critical review of methods for size characterization of non-particulate protein aggregates. Curr. Pharm. Biotechnol. 10, 359-372. [e-mail to request PDF file]

"Size-Exclusion Chromatography with On-Line Light-Scattering, Absorbance, and Refractive Index Detectors for Studying Proteins and Their Interactions" [review article, 170+ citations] J. Wen, T. Arakawa and J. S. Philo (1996) Anal. Biochem. 240, 155–166.

"Aggregation analysis of therapeutic proteins, part 2: Analytical ultracentrifugation and dynamic light scattering". Arakawa, T., Philo, J. S., Ejima, D., Tsumoto, K., and Arisaka, F. (2007). Bioprocess International 5 (4), 36-47.

"Online Size-Exclusion High-Performance Liquid Chromatography Light Scattering and Differential Refractometry Methods to Determine Degree of Polymer Conjugation to Proteins and Protein-Protein or Protein-Ligand Association States", B.S. Kendrick, B.S. Kerwin, B. Chang, and J.S. Philo (2001) Anal. Biochem. 299, 136-146.