Preparation of a super-long two column chromatography system and its application in separating glycosylated puerarin

Separation of Puerarin-7-O-glucoside from its precursor, puerarin, using a common chromatography column packed with AB-8 macroporous resin was unsuccessful. Therefore, in this study a 8 m super-long flexible reinforced PVC column was externally added to the common column in order to improve the chromatography efficiency by increasing the number of theoretical plates. Both the PVC and common columns were separately packed with AB-8 macroporous resin slurry. The packed PVC column was coiled after washing and stored until use. The microbial transformation mixture with puerarin-7-O-glucoside and puerarin (250 mL) was loaded onto the common column, followed by washing with 2000 mL H(2)O. After attaching the coiled external PVC column to the common column, a linear gradient of 10-30% ethanol was applied to elute the target compound. Two peaks appeared: peak I contained puerarin-7-O-glucoside at 97.9% purity and 88.1% recovery rate, and peak II was puerarin at 98.7% purity and 87.0% recovery rate. The use of the coiled external flexible reinforced PVC column avoided spatial restriction for long columns, which made it much more convenient for column packing and chromatography operations. Furthermore, this method eliminated the resin blockage problem caused by stationary water pressure in a rigid vertical long column. Using an external super-long column, the PVC tube was connected with the common column only during elution, which avoided delay in time period during sample loading and column washes associated with the use of long external columns.