Rapid separation of gangliosides by high-performance liquid chromatography

We have developed a high-performance liquid chromatographic (HPLC) procedure for the rapid separation of individual ganglioside components on a 5-micron porous silica gel column using a mixture of isopropanol-hexane-water with increasing water content and decreasing hexane content. Total ganglioside mixtures were first fractionated on DEAE-silica gel according to the number of sialic acid residues. Each fraction was then separated into individual ganglioside components by HPLC. Total elution time was less than 2 h. This procedure has been applied for the separation of major ganglioside components of human erythrocytes and beef brain and is highly reproducible.