Chapter 9 TLC and HPTLC of Phospholipids and Glycolipids in Health and Disease

Abstract

Publisher Summary This chapter discusses thin-layer chromatography (TLC) and high-performance thin layer chromatography (HPTLC) of phospholipids and glycolipids in health and disease. The TLC has been developed as a versatile and sensitive analysis method especially in the lipid field. There are several reasons for the increasing application of TLC to the analysis of lipids and related compounds. TLC can achieve excellent separation as compared to ordinary liquid column chromatography. Silica gel is an ideal adsorbent for lipid chromatography, because it has an unsurpassed capacity for isothermal separations of various amphiphilic as well as lipophilic compounds. Much finer silica gel providing higher resolution can be used for TLC plates than for columns of high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) in which the pressure that can be applied is a limiting factor. A prominent feature of TLC is that a wide variety of compounds with different polarities can be separated on one plate. Although HPLC may make possible a good separation by means of a gradient elution, TLC easily produces a similar result with a single mixed solvent system. A unique feature of TLC is that a mixed solvent system behaves similar to a gradient elution system during travel on a plate because the solvent itself is chromatographed by the dry silica gel and because differential evaporation from the plate may occur. This provides the potential for TLC as well as its easy operation and low cost performance.