Separation of acetins by counter-current chromatography

In this work we report the purification of a crude acetin mixture into mono‐, di‐ and triacetin by countercurrent chromatography. The process was initially tested on a small, semi‐preparative scale (0.5 g) to determine its efficiency. The process was then scaled up to accommodate 2.5 g of crude reaction products containing a mixture of the acetins. The solvent system ethyl acetate/n‐butanol/water 1:0.2:1 was used in all separation procedures. Mono‐, di‐ and triacetins were separated similarly in the semi‐preparative and preparative runs.     

Synthesis of heterocyclic [3.3.3]propellanes via a sequential four-component reaction

A highly chemoselective heteroannulation protocol for the synthesis of unreported polysubstituted heterocyclic [3.3.3]propellanes has been developed by sequential four-component reaction of ninhydrin, malononitrile, primary amines, and dialkyl acetylenedicarboxylates under mild conditions in water. To the best of our knowledge, there are no previous reports for the synthesis of these classes of heterocyclic [3.3.3]propellanes. The merit of this sequential Knoevenagel condensation/enamine formation/Michael addition/cyclization sequence is highlighted by its high atom-economy, excellent yields, the use of water as reaction media, and the efficiency of production without the use of any activator or metal promoters. This synthesis serves as a nice addition to group-assistant-purification (GAP) chemistry in which purification via chromatography and recrystallization can be avoided, and the pure products were obtained simply by washing the crude products with 95% ethanol.     

Preparative Liquid Chromatography and Centrifugal Partition Chromatography for Purification of New Anticancer Precursors

In organic synthesis, the purification of reactional intermediates or final products is generally carried out by normal phase flash chromatography. However, for dihydrodipyridopyrazines, a new family of antitumor agents, the efficiency of this technique is too low to achieve the purification of the isomer mixture. Purification of the DHDPP isomer mixture has therefore been studied using preparative liquid chromatography. With the stationary phase used in flash chromatography, PLC provides greater efficiency and allows to increase the mobile phase flow rate. A complete study of preparative purification was performed, including that of compounds solubility and analytical optimization. This work has allowed to lower the overlap between the two DHDPP isomers, to greatly reduce the total duration of the process, to increase the purified quantity per run and consequently to greatly improve the throughput of the purification. In addition, this technique can be easily and totally automated. Concurrently, another purification method (centrifugal partition chromatography ), based on acidic constants difference of the two components in two immiscible liquids, was developed. CPC has demonstrated its ability to separate the two DHDPP isomers. Finally, the economic aspects of PLC and CPC results are compared.     

A Novel Approach to Reversed-Phase Preparative High-Performance Liquid Chromatography of Peptides

Abstract

In this study, we describe a novel approach to preparative liquid chromatography which takes advantage of the different relative hydrophobicities of components of a sample mixture, so that when a column is optimally loaded with an aqueous solution of the sample mixture, there is competition among the sample components for the adsorption sites on the hydrophobic stationary phase. The more hydrophobic components compete more successfully for these sites than more hydrophilic components, which are displaced and immediately eluted from the column. Thus, the major separation takes place in water. Subsequent treatment with an aqueous organic modifier is only required to wash retained components off the column and takes no part in the major separation process. This approach was applied to the preparative purification of mixtures of closely-related peptides, representing the crude peptide mixtures typically obtained from solid-phase peptide synthesis. The excellent separation profiles and high yields of pure peptide products on analytical columns reported in this study demonstrate that this methodology has great potential for preparative separation of a major component from hydrophilic and/or hydrophobic impurities.     

Crystalline‐Sponge‐Based Structural Analysis of Crude Natural Product Extracts

Characterization of complex natural product mixtures to the absolute structural level of their components often requires significant amounts of starting materials and lengthy purification process, followed by arduous structure elucidation efforts. The crystalline sponge (CS) method has demonstrated utility in the absolute structure elucidation of isolated organic compounds at miniscule quantities compared to conventional methods. In this work, we developed a new CS‐based workflow that greatly expedites the in‐depth structural analysis of crude natural product extracts. Using a crude extract of the red alga Laurencia pacifica, we showed that CS affinity screening prior to compound isolation enables prioritization of analytes present in the extract, and we subsequently resolved the molecular structures of six sesquiterpenes with stereochemical clarity from around 10 mg crude extract. This study demonstrates a new chemotyping workflow that can greatly accelerate natural product discovery from complex samples.     

The Role and Efficiency of Ammonium Sulphate Precipitation in Purification Process of Papain Crude Extract

It has been common to do fractionation (for example using ammonium sulphate as a precipitating agent) before doing a more sophisticated method for purification of a protein. The logic behind this is easy to understand, but in fact, the precipitation step often causes severe loss in yield and activity of the protein, making the whole purification effort too costly. In this work we evaluated the specific activity (thus, purification factor) and total activity (yield) during the purification process of papain from a crude extract using ion exchange chromatography (IEC), with and without prior fractionation using ammonium sulphate. Detail assays in each step were recorded and SDS-PAGE was also done to reveal the protein profile of the purification products.     

Rapid analysis of titer,aggregate, and intact mass of antibody therapeutics using automated multi-dimensional liquid chromatography coupled with native mass spectroscopy

Monoclonal antibodies are tetrameric complex proteins, primarily produced using mammalian cell culture. Attributes such as titer, aggregates, and intact mass analysis are monitored during process development/optimization. In the present study, a novel workflow such that the Protein-A affinity chromatography is performed in the first dimension for purification and titer estimation, whereas size exclusion chromatography is employed in the second dimension to characterize size variants using native mass spectrometry. The present workflow offers a significant advantage over the traditionally used standalone Protein-A affinity chromatography followed by size exclusion chromatography analysis in that it can monitor these four attributes in 8 min while requiring a minimal sample size (10–15 μg) and not requiring any manual peak collection. In contrast, the traditional standalone approach requires manual collection of eluted peaks in Protein-A affinity chromatography followed by buffer exchange to a mass-compatible buffer, which can take up to 2–3 h with considerable risk of sample loss, degradation, and induced modifications. As the biopharma industry moves to make analytical testing efficient, we believe that the approach proposed here would be of significant interest due to its ability to monitor multiple process and product quality attributes in a single workflow and via rapid analysis.     

Asymmetric synthesis of α-amino-1,3-dithianes via chiral N-phosphonyl imine-based Umpolung reaction without using chromatography and recrystallization

A series of α-amino-1,3-dithianes have been synthesized via the asymmetric Umpolung reaction of 2-lithio-1,3-dithianes with chiral N-phosphonyl imines in good chemical yields (up to 82%) and good to excellent diastereoselectivities (>99:1). The manner by which chiral N-phosphonyl imines are slowly added into the solution of 2-lithio-1,3-dithiane was found to be crucial for achieving excellent diastereoselectivity. The current synthesis was proven to follow the GAP chemistry (group-assistant-purification chemistry) process, which avoids traditional purification techniques of chromatography or recrystallization, i.e., the pure chiral α-amino-1,3-dithianes attached with the chiral N-phosphonyl group were readily obtained by washing the solid crude products with hexane or a mixture of hexane-ethyl acetate.     

Development of a custom high-throughput preparative liquid chromatography/mass spectrometer platform for the preparative purification and analytical analysis of compound libraries

Solution-phase parallel synthesis has had a profound impact on the speed of compound synthesis delivering relatively pure compounds (>80%) in short order. However, to develop structure activity relationships (SAR) for a compound series, each library member should preferably be >95% pure. Historically, achieving and quantifying such high-purity criteria for each library member proved to be the slow step for most lead discovery groups. To address this issue, significant modifications have been made to a commercial Agilent preparative LC/MS system to allow for the general mass-guided purification of diverse compound libraries. The custom modifications include (1) the "DMSO slug" approach for the purification of samples with poor solubility; (2) an active splitter to reduce system back-pressure, reduce the delay volume, and allow for a variable split ratio; (3) a sample loading pump for the quick purification of large, dilute samples; (4) a preparative column-selection valve to quickly change column selectivity or sample loading; and (5) an analytical injector with a separate flow path for crude reaction or fraction analyses.     

Atom-economical isocyanide-based multicomponent synthesis of 2,5-dioxopyrrolidines,spirobenzothiazinechromans and 1,5-benzothiazepines

An efficient synthesis of new pharmaceutically relevant dioxopyrrolidines, spirobenzo thiazine-2,3′-chromans, and benzothiazepines via isocyanide-based multicomponent condensation reactions at room temperature is reported. This synthesis serves as a nice addition to group-assistant-purification (GAP) chemistry in which purification via chromatography and recrystallization can be avoided, and the pure products are obtained simply by washing the crude products with 95% ethanol.     

Chlorherstellung mit Sauerstoffverzehrkathoden. Energieeinsparung bei der Elektrolyse

Chlorine is one of the most important base chemicals and is required for the manufacture of about two‐thirds of all chemical products such as polymers, crop protection and pharmaceutical products, products for drinking water purification, and ultrapure silicon for photovoltaics and electronics applications. The industrial chlorine production through the chlor‐alkali electrolysis has since 1975 mainly been based on the advanced membrane process. Chlorine recycling by manufacturing processes based on hydrogen chloride has also become increasingly important. The still very high energy demand for the electrochemical chlorine synthesis can be significantly reduced by up to 30 % if the hydrogen evolving cathodes in the classical processes are replaced by oxygen depolarized cathodes (ODC) which are well known from fuel cells. Hydrogen chloride electrolysis with ODCs is already carried out in world‐scale plants. The more important chlor‐alkali process with ODCs will be realized for the first time in 2011 in a demonstration unit with a chlorine capacity of 20000 tons per year in Uerdingen, Germany.     

High-Throughput Platform for Novel Reaction Discovery

Detecting the formation of new chemical bonds in high-throughput synthesis is limited by the efficiency and scalability of reaction product detection, as conventional methods for isolating product from reaction mixtures are time consuming and labor intensive. Here, we report a miniaturizable purification method that enables the rapid, high-throughput isolation of quaternary ammonium-tagged products from reaction mixtures with excellent purity using inexpensive equipment that easily can be set up in a typical organic chemistry laboratory. This novel purification technique enabled us to establish a high-throughput reaction discovery platform. We validated this platform in a screen of 1536 reactions, and one previously unreported transformation was identified.     

Rapid and high-throughput purification of salvianolic acid B from Salvia miltiorrhiza Bunge by high-performance counter-current chromatography

A large-scale purification of salvianolic acid B from Salvia miltiorrhiza Bunge is presented. The method development began with selection of the solvent system, then optimization of the operating parameters and ended up with linear scale-up from an analytical to a preparative instrument. Three factors were used for method optimization and scale-up estimation: purity, process throughput and process efficiency. Preparation was achieved using a two-phase solvent system comprising hexane–ethyl acetate–methanol–acetic acid–water (1:5:1.5:0.00596:5, v/v). This preparation yielded 475 mg of salvianolic acid B with a purity of 96.1% from 1.5 g of crude extract. The process throughput of crude was 2.23 g/h while process efficiency per gram of target compound was 0.769 g/h. Two factors—process environmental risk factor and process evaluation factor were used for evaluation of the separation process.     

Technologies for Processing of Crude Glycerol from Biodiesel Production: Synthesis of Solketal and Its Hydrolysis to Obtain Pure Glycerol

Information on the volume of production of biodiesel and crude glycerol from it is analyzed. The possibility of using crude glycerol as a feedstock for preparing solketal is demonstrated. The specific features of the solketal synthesis from crude glycerol and of separation of the reaction products are described. A catalytic process is suggested for selective decomposition of solketal to glycerol to obtain purified glycerol of any required concentration up to 99.8 wt %. A flowsheet is suggested for processing of crude glycerol to obtain solketal and subsequently converting it to obtain pure glycerol.     

High-throughput purification of single compounds and libraries

The need for increasing productivity in medicinal chemistry and associated improvements in automated synthesis technologies for compound library production during the past few years have resulted in a major challenge for compound purification technology and its organization. To meet this challenge, we have recently set up three full-service chromatography units with the aid of in-house engineers, different HPLC suppliers, and several companies specializing in custom laboratory automation technologies. Our goal was to combine high-throughput purification with the high attention to detail which would be afforded by a dedicated purification service. The resulting final purification laboratory can purify up to 1000 compounds/week in amounts ranging from 5 to 300 mg, whereas the two service intermediate purification units take 100 samples per week from 0.3 to 100 g. The technologies consist of normal-phase and reversed-phase chromatography, robotic fraction pooling and reformatting, a bottling system, an automated external solvent supply and removal system, and a customized, high-capacity freeze-dryer. All work processes are linked by an electronic sample registration and tracking system.     

Preparative high-performance liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry for the high-throughput purification of combinatorial libraries

Accurate results for the testing of combinatorial libraries necessitates high purity of the library members. Therefore, combinatorial libraries derived from a combinatorial solution or solid-phase synthesis often require the purification of compounds that do not achieve a certain purity threshold. This study describes that preparative high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC)-mass spectrometry (MS) is the method of choice for the purification of large arrays of diverse compounds. The adoption of this technology to the workflow of a solution phase combinatorial chemistry laboratory producing more than 20,000 compounds per year is described. Furthermore, the setup and logistics are discussed as well as the purity achievable for large libraries. Efficiency, speed, quality, and universality of preparative HPLC-MS are presented in detail for a library of 140 compounds, including data logistics and downstream processes as well.     

Large-gel two-dimensional electrophoresis-matrix assisted laser desorption/ionization-time of flight-mass spectrometry: an analytical challenge for studying complex protein mixtures

The large-gel two-dimensional electrophoresis (2-DE) technique, developed by Klose and co-workers over the past 25 years, provides the resolving power necessary to separate crude proteome extracts of higher eukaryotes. Matrix assisted laser desorption/ionization-time of flight-mass spectrometry (MALDI-TOF-MS) provides the sample throughput necessary to identify thousands of different protein species in an adequate time period. Spot excision, in situ proteolysis, and extraction of the cleavage products from the gel matrix, peptide purification and concentration as well as the mass spectrometric sample preparation are the crucial steps that interface the two analytical techniques. Today, these routines and not the mass spectrometric instrumentation determine how many protein digests can be analyzed per day per instrument. The present paper focuses on this analytical interface and reports on an integrated protocol and technology developed in our laboratory. Automated identification of proteins in sequence databases by mass spectrometric peptide mapping requires a powerful search engine that makes full use of the information contained in the experimental data, and scores the search results accordingly. This challenge is heading a second part of the paper.     

Automation of fluorous solid-phase extraction for parallel synthesis

An automatic fluorous solid-phase extraction (F-SPE) technique is developed by using FluoroFlash SPE cartridges on the RapidTrace workstation. A 10-module workstation has the capability to complete a maximum of 100 SPEs each round in 1-2 h. Another important feature of the RapidTrace system is that it has the capability to load slurry samples onto the F-SPE cartridges. The F-SPE cartridge charged with 2 g of fluorous silica gel is used to purify up to 200 mg of crude sample. Sample loading, elution solvent, cartridge reuse, and SPE reproducibility are evaluated. The automatic SPE system is used for purification of a small urea library generated from amine-scavenging reactions using fluorous dichlorotriazine, a 96-membered amide library generated using 2-chloro-4,6-bis[(perfluorohexyl)propyloxy]-1,3,5-triazine as the coupling agent, and another 96-membered library generated from fluorous Mitsunobu reactions. Approximately 90% of the products have > 90% purity after F-SPE.     

Solution-phase preparation of a 560-compound library of individual pure mappicine analogues by fluorous mixture synthesis

Solution-phase mixture synthesis has efficiency advantages and favorable reaction kinetics. Applications of this technique, however, have been discouraged by the difficulty in obtaining individual, pure final products by using conventional separation and identification processes. Introduced here is a new strategy for mixture synthesis that addresses the separation and identification problems. Members of a series of organic substrates are paired with a series of fluorous tags of different chain lengths. The tagged starting materials are then mixed and taken through a multistep reaction process. Fluorous chromatography is used to demix the tagged product mixtures on the basis of the fluorine content of the tags to provide the individual pure components of the mixture, which are detagged to release the final products. The utility of fluorous mixture synthesis is demonstrated by the preparation of a 560-membered library of analogues of the natural product mappicine. A seven-component mixture is carried through a four-step mixture synthesis (two one-pot and two parallel steps) to incorporate two additional points of diversity onto the tetracyclic core. Methods for analysis and purification of the intermediates are established for the quality control of the mixture synthesis.     

Separation and identification of peptide mixtures in a synthesis crude of carbetocin by liquid chromatography/electrospray ionization mass spectrometry

In order to separate and characterize the target peptide and the side-product peptide compounds of a synthesis crude of the peptide hormone carbetocin, liquid chromatography coupled to high-flow electrospray ionization mass spectrometry (LC/eS-MS) has been used. Carbetocin is an important drug with recognized therapeutical application for stimulation of uterine contractions to facilitate parturition. Stepwise solid phase peptide synthesis (SPPS) commonly results in unwanted side products associated with incomplete peptide chains. Consequently, this procedure requires extensive purification and characterization of the final synthesis crude. The linear solvation energy relationship (LSER) method has been applied to optimize the proportion of organic modifier of the mobile phase used in the established LC method. On the other hand, ES-MS has allowed rapid and reliable identification of the target peptide and the other impurities present in the carbetocin synthesis products.