Thin-Layer Chromatography (TLC) is still by far the most important technique to isolate and identify novel bioactive compounds from natural sources. It is easy to use, offers the possibility to detect specific groups of compounds through post-chromatographic derivatization or staining and can be combined with identification tools such as mass spectrometry and bioautography. In addition, the separation conditions, which have been optimized on the TLC plate can be transferred directly to the preparative liquid chromatography process to obtain the compound of interest in larger amounts.
We will show examples for the straightforward process design starting with the identification of bioactive compounds using TLC, optimizing the separation by appropriate choices of the solvent system and the transfer of the separation to preparative liquid chromatography. After the transfer from the TLC plate to the column we will also show the possibilities of scaling up preparative liquid chromatography to a ton-scale.
We will show the advantages of bioautographic tests on TLC plates to identify unknown compounds with specific physiological activities, e.g. antibiotic or hormone-like activity.