Isolation of indole alkaloids from Catharanthus roseus by centrifugal partition chromatography in the pH-zone refining mode

Centrifugal partition chromatography (CPC) in the pH-zone refining mode all owed a preparative and efficient isolation of vindoline, vindolinine, catha ranthine and vincaleukoblastine from a crude mixture of Catharanthus roseus alkaloids. The separation protocol was tested with a synthetic mixture of vindoline, catharanthine and vincaleukoblastine. The fraction content was a nalyzed and the results compared with theoretical chromatograms obtained by numerical simulation. The increase in injected sample mass results in an i mprovement of the purity of the isolated compounds. This observation, confi rmed by theory, is of prime importance for the development of preparative p H-zone refining CPC as a preparative separation method. (C) 1999 Published by Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.