Separation of linear gramicidins using carbon dioxide-containing mobile phases

Packed-column supercritical-fluid chromatography (pSFC) is presented as a novel method for separating and analyzing gramicidin samples. By use of methanol-modified carbon dioxide as a mobile phase the pentadecapeptides gramicidin A (gA), gramicidin B (gB), and gramicidin C (gC) are readily separated and eluted from a PRP-1 poly(styrene-divinylbenzene) column. Although optimum separation conditions are typically achieved near a column temperature of 40 degrees C, a column pressure of 11 MPa, and 30% methanol modifier, pressure and modifier gradients around these values are also found to improve the overall separation time. Measurements indicate that the mobile phase solubility of gramicidin under these conditions is 5.0+/-0.4 microg mL(-1). Collection of individual peaks during chromatography achieved analytical-scale isolation of 2 microg refined gC from 20 microg injected gramicidin D. Further, supercritical-fluid extraction of 200 microg gramicidin D from a Chromosorb 102 support packed into the vessel produced 57 microg gA in 90% purity. The results establish that carbon dioxide-based mobile phases can be successfully used for the separation of individual gramicidin species.

Techniques for analysis and purification in high-throughput chemistry

The success of combinatorial chemistry, and the increased emphasis on single well-characterised compounds of high purity, has had a significant impact on analytical and purification technologies. The requirement for ever-increasing throughput has led to the automation and parallelisation of these techniques. Advances have also been made in developing faster methods to augment throughput further.

High-throughput purification of compound libraries

Synthesis of combinatorial libraries by parallel synthesis, followed by high- throughput biological screening, is the new paradigm for drug discovery. Purity of these libraries is an important consideration to obtain high-quality assay data. Liquid-liquid extraction and solid-phase capture reagents are useful in special cases for small numbers of compounds. However, for libraries of a few thousand compounds, HPLC is a viable alternative. Beyond these numbers, factors such as solvent requirements, the number of fractions and tracking become prohibitive. Supercritical fluid chromatography has been successfully employed in automated purification instrumentation and is expected to be capable of purifying libraries of tens-of-thousands of compounds.