Fractionation Protocol of Marine Metabolites

Marine organisms are well known for their capability to produce chemically unique and biological relevant small molecules. However, marine extracts are complex mixtures of compounds with a huge presence of salts. Thus, biological screening and chemical analysis of marine extracts pose specific technical constraints and require adequate sample preparation. We have developed an automated solid-phase extraction (SPE)-based method to desalt marine extracts and recover metabolites, adapt to be integrated in platform of high-throughput screening. The procedure uses a poly(styrene-divynylbenzene)-based support and a stepwise organic solvent elution herein described.