12] Electrophoresis of antibiotics

Abstract

Publisher Summary This chapter discusses the different types of electrophoresis of antibiotics. In studies of antibiotics, electrophoresis has been mainly employed for the identification and confirmation of the purity, the same as paper chromatography and thin-layer chromatography. Among various techniques of electrophoresis, 1–7 paper electrophoresis, especially high-voltage paper electrophoresis, has been most widely used for studies on antibiotics. Application of high-voltage gives a good separation of various kinds of antibiotics, especially water-soluble antibiotics, even with crude preparations, by a short-time operation. Though not yet widely applied, a high-voltage thin-layer electrophoresis will become a powerful method of identification and separation of antibiotics. Agar gel electrophoresis and carrier-free continuous electrophoresis have been also applied to some antibiotic studies, but from viewpoints of efficiency and simplicity of the techniques, high-voltage paper or thin-layer electrophoresis seems to be more useful.