Development of a Novel High-Performance Thin Layer Chromatography-Based Method for the Simultaneous Quantification of Clinically Relevant Lipids from Cells and Tissue Extracts.

Lipids such as cholesterol, triacylglycerols, and fatty acids play important roles in the regulation of cellular metabolism and cellular signaling pathways and, as a consequence, in the development of various diseases. It is therefore important to understand how their metabolism is regulated to better define the components involved in the development of various human diseases. In the present work, we describe the development and validation of a high-performance thin layer chromatography (HPTLC) method allowing the separation and quantification of free cholesterol, cholesteryl esters, nonesterified fatty acids, and triacylglycerols. This method will be of interest as the quantification of these lipids in one single assay is difficult to perform.

Instrument platforms for thin-layer chromatography.

High performance column and thin-layer chromatography are both instrumental techniques but differ in that column chromatography requires a fully integrated instrument platform with high pressure capability while for thin-layer chromatography separate devices are used for each unit operation, usually at or close to atmospheric pressure, and afford higher flexibility supporting on-line or off-line operation. The unit operations of thin-layer chromatography are defined as sample application, development and evaluation with derivatization as an optional step. The diversity of equipment for each operation contributes to the flexibility of analysis by thin-layer chromatography and supports manual, semi-automated or full-automation of the separation process. Instrument platforms are more than a convenience as they affect performance, repeatability, sample detectability, and time management. The current trend in thin-layer chromatography is to make the unit operations independent of the user so that analysts can perform other tasks while each step is performed. In addition, in thin-layer chromatography it is general practice to separate several samples simultaneously, and instrument platforms are required to accommodate this feature. In this article, we review contemporary instrumentation employed in thin-layer chromatography for sample application, development, derivatization, photodocumentation, densitometric evaluation, and hyphenation with spectroscopic detectors with an emphasis on the variety and performance of commercially available systems. Some suggestions for best practices and avoidance of common mistakes are included.

A new high-performance thin layer chromatography-based assay of detergents and surfactants commonly used in membrane protein studies.

The hydrophobic nature of membrane proteins (MPs) necessitates the use of detergents for their extraction, solubilization and purification. Because the concentration of amphiphiles is crucial in the crystallization process, detergent quantification is essential to routine analysis. Here we describe a quantitative high-performance thin-layer chromatography (HPTLC) method we developed for the detection of small quantities of detergent bound to solubilized MPs. After optimization of aqueous deposit conditions, we show that most detergents widely used in membrane protein crystallography display distinctive mobilities in a mixture of dichloromethane, methanol and acetic acid 32:7.6:0.4 (v/v/v). Migration and derivatization conditions were optimized with n-dodecyl-ß-D-maltoside (DDM), the most popular detergent for membrane protein crystallization. A linear calibration curve very well fits our data from 0.1 to 1.6 µg of DDM in water with a limit of detection of 0.05 µg. This limit of detection is the best achieved to date for a routine detergent assay, being not modified by the addition of NaCl, commonly used in protein buffers. With these chromatographic conditions, no prior treatment is required to assess the quantities of detergent bound to purified MPs, thus enabling the quantification of close structure detergents via a single procedure. This HPTLC method, which is fast and requires low sample volume, is fully suitable for routine measurements.