Greenness of proteomic sample preparation and analysis techniques for biopharmaceuticals

Proteins are efficient therapeutic agents and attractive potential new biomarkers due to their physiological and pathological functions. Further, biopharmaceuticals feature complex protein architectures that must be assayed and quality controlled. Capillary electrophoresis (CE) has become one of the most powerful tools for proteomic analysis. CE is an eco-friendlier alternative to traditional liquid chromatography; however, its true greenness and environmental impact is not very often confirmed by green metrics. Here, we assessed the greenness of bottomup, middle-up, and top-down sample preparation and analytical approaches for analysis of proteins using AGREEprep and AGREE metric systems, respectively. The combined use of both metric tools can help identify weaknesses of the overall analytical procedure and point toward greener alternatives. The results showed that the trends in greener analytical workflows for proteomic analysis should be focused mainly on miniaturization of analytical devices and applying of in-line and on-line sample preparation.