A simple chromatographic route for the isolation of meso diaminopimelic acid

Meso diaminopimelic acid is an important noncoded amino acid found in Gram-negative bacterial peptidoglycan. In spite of its importance, this stereoisomer is not available commercially. A simple, economical procedure was developed for the isolation of pure meso diaminopimelic acid via an high-performance liquid chromatography separation. In our new approach, the underivatized three isomers of diaminopimelic acid were separated on a crown ether-based chiral stationary phase. For the structure identification, (1)H NMR spectroscopy was applied.