Isolation of Glycolipids from Blood Elements

Several chromatographic e.g. HPTLC, HPLC, etc. methods have been published in the literature for the separation, after sufficient pretreatment, of derivatized or non-derivatized glycolipid samples. Our task is the extraction, isolation and separation of the glycolipids from different blood elements, followed by suitable fractionation methods, giving the lipid classes in sufficient purity and quantity for HPLC, HPTLC and OPTLC measurements and possibly further biochemical use. We show the differences between the procedures commonly used and that developed in our laboratory. The advantage of our method, which employs 3 cm long Brownlee Labs HPLC cartridges, is that it can be automated, it gives class fractionation of the lipid samples and as it is hardware compatible with HPLC equipment it can be used directly in a coupled column system for on line separation in the individual class. The development of this column coupling method for the fractionation of a given lipid class from the total lipid extract on an analytical column is under development.