CHROMATOGRAPHIC SEPARATIONS OF THE CONSTITUENTS DERIVED FROM SANGUINARIA-CANADENSIS - THIN-LAYER CHROMATOGRAPHY AND CAPILLARY ZONE ELECTROPHORESIS

The extract of Sanguinaria canadensis, or bloodroot, contains a number of alkaloids with pharmacological activity, including sanguinarine, o xysanguinarine, and chelerythrine. High-performance thin-layer chromat ography is coupled with fast atom bombardment mass spectrometry to sur vey the amounts of these known compounds, and to establish the presenc e of other components in the natural product mixture. TLC-MS provides analytical data of equal utility for characterization of this mixture as does capillary zone electrophoresis, but the higher loadings of mat erial on the TLC plate enable easier identification of the mixture com ponents. Despite the perceived lower reproducibility for TLC, it is sh own that reproducibility in R, and mass spectral data is excellent. Of the benzophenanthridine alkaloids studied, only sanguinarine and chel erythrine are available as standard materials, but even this standard is shown to be impure, consisting of many related components. Two-dime nsional TLC was shown to be especially helpful in this analysis.