An approach to speed up the isolation of hydrophilic metabolites from natural sources at semipreparative level by using a hydrophilic-lipophilic balance/mixed-mode strong cation exchange-high-performance liquid chromatography/mass spectrometry system.

An approach to speed up the isolation of hydrophilic metabolites in complex natural matrixes by using a HLB/MCX-HPLC/MS system based on the retention properties of hydrophilic-lipophilic and cation exchange polymeric cartridges was developed. This methodology was successfully applied to the re-isolation of small water soluble compounds with completely different structures from two different natural extracts such as a dipeptide (vanchrobactin) from a bacterium culture broth and a pyrrolidine bearing a carboxylic acid moiety (clionapyrrolidine A) from a sponge. This method improved not only the efficiency of the isolation methodology but also the isolation time in relation to the existing methods.