Cryochromatography: A method for the separation of lung phosphoglycerides according to the number and length of saturated fatty acid components
✍ Scribed by Rogene F. Henderson; Michael H. Clayton
- Publisher
- Elsevier Science
- Year
- 1976
- Tongue
- English
- Weight
- 788 KB
- Volume
- 70
- Category
- Article
- ISSN
- 0003-2697
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✦ Synopsis
A thin-layer chromatographic method utilizing ultracold temperatures has been developed to separate phosphoglycerides containing only long-chain saturated fatty acids from phosphoglycerides containing fatty acids with any degree of unsaturation. The method is direct, nondiluting, and nondestructive. Since the surface-active lipids found in lung surfactant contain only long-chain, saturated fatty acids, the method should be particularly useful to those in lung lipid research. Studies on the uptake of labeled precursors into the lung surfactant lipids, as well as work on quantitation of surfactant lecithins in the lung, can be facilitated by this method.
Lung biochemists face a unique problem in dealing with the surfaceactive lipids found in lung surfactant. These lipids are phosphoglycerides containing only long-chain saturated fatty acids. The surfactant property of these lipids depends upon the presence of two saturated acyl groups per molecule as opposed to the usual phosphoglyceride composition in which one saturated and one unsaturated fatty acid are present. Separation of these saturated phosphoglycerides from other phospholipids with the same polar end group has been very difficult. The argentation method of Arvidson (1) is widely used to separate phosphoglycerides according to the degree ofunsaturation in their fatty acids, but the method does not separate fully saturated phosphoglycerides from monoenoic species (those containing only one site of unsaturation in the two esterified fatty acids). King and Clements (2) devised a method to do this by using mercury as a heavy metal adduct, but the method involves column chromatography and consequently a large dilution of the sample. Mason et al. (3) successfully combined the mercury adduct method and thin-layer chromatography, but in this method the mercuric acetate adduct must be formed prior to the