Planar chromatographic super-hyphenations for rapid dereplication

• Published in: Phytochemistry reviews Vol. 24; no. 1; pp. 1 - 12
• Main Author: Morlock, Gertrud E.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Dordrecht Springer Netherlands 01.02.2025; Springer Nature B.V
• Subjects: Analytical chemistry; Artificial intelligence; Bioassays; Biochemistry; Biological effects; Biology; Biomedical and Life Sciences; Chemistry; Chemistry/Food Science; Chromatography; Column chromatography; digestion; humans; Life Sciences; liver; Mass spectrometry; Mass spectroscopy; Mixtures; Multiplexing; Organic Chemistry; Plant Genetics and Genomics; Plant Sciences; prioritization; Separation; Thin layer chromatography; variance; Prioritization; Metabolization; Digestion; Citizen science; Bioactivity profiling; Biotransformation
• ISSN: 1568-7767; 1572-980X
• DOI: 10.1007/s11101-022-09844-x

Analytical chemistry offers important tools that provide insight and step-by-step understanding. However, natural samples containing many thousands of different compounds are subject to natural variance which makes it complex for artificial intelligence and human understanding. Instead of the prevailing comprehensive separation/detection approach, a prioritization approach is discussed for dereplication that focuses on the most necessary to discover. It is extremely helpful to combine on the same surface two disciplines, i.e. chemistry for separation of mixtures and biology for detection of biological effects, to filter out and prioritize the important compounds that then need to be identified. Complex mixtures are separated in parallel with imaging high-performance thin-layer chromatography, detected non-targeted with planar multiplex bioassays to prioritize compounds and elute the important ones to orthogonal column chromatography−diode array detection−high-resolution mass spectrometry for further characterization. Super-hyphenations reduce thousands of compounds to a manageable number of important active compounds. Its potential lies not only in the prioritization of compounds, but also detection of unknown compounds that were not previously the focus of analysts. An image is worth a thousand words and an effect image even more so. On-surface multiplex bioassays enable the differentiation of opposing signals/effects of compounds in a complex natural sample, which only makes understanding possible. On-surface metabolization enables the study of any changes in the effects through digestion or de-/toxification (S9 liver system). By these new tools applied on the same surface, the mechanisms of action of complex mixtures can be better understood. The latest open-source 2LabsToGo system combines the chemistry and biology laboratory in a miniaturized system developed for wider use of this innovative technique.