Immobilizing CC chemokine receptor 4’s N-terminal extracellular tail on a capillary to study its potential ligands by capillary electrophoresis

ML40 is the equivalent peptide derived from the N terminal of CCC4 (CC chemokine receptor 4), which plays a pivotal role in allergic inflammation. A new capillary electrophoresis method was developed to study the interactions between ML40 and its potential ligands in which ML40 was immobilized on the inner wall of capillary as the stationary phase based on the covalent linking technique. The interaction between S009, a known CCR4 antagonist, and the immobilized ML40 was studied to validate the bioactivity of ML40. The electropherogram of S009 showed that the peak height was reduced and the peak width was broadened in the ML40 immobilized capillary. Otherwise, 25 computer-aided design and drafting compounds were screened out using this method. Four compounds’ peak widths were broadened and their peak heights were reduced, as with S009. Meanwhile, nonlinear chromatography was used to calculate the constants for the ligand–receptor complex formation. Furthermore, the tertiary amine compounds belonging to the chiral tertiary amines of the type NRR′R″, which are optically inactive resulting from rapid pyramide inversion, were chiral separated by our protein immobilization method for the first time. In general, the methodology presented would be applicable to study compound–ML40 interactions as a reliable and robust screening method for CCR4 antagonist discovery.