Isolation of individual amino acids from various microbiological sources using reversed-phase high-performance liquid...

A new method for the preparative isolation of individual amino acids on a milligram scale based on reversed-phase high-performance liquid chromatography (RP-HPLC) after pre-column derivatization with carbobenzoxychloride (Z-Cl) has been developed. The chromatographic procedure was tested by the investigation of jack bean urease hydrolysate. The method has been applied to the preparative separation of Z-amino acids (from 10 up to 16) obtained from protein hydrolysates of various sources (green microalgae, blue-green algae, halophilic and methylotrophic microorganisms) and was proved to be reliable by the separation of deuterated amino acids (enrichment 97-99%) from Methylobacillus flagellatum (due to the bioconversion of CD3OD and D2O). Independent of the biological source of the protein, the amino acids were isolated with high recovery (from 68% up to 89%) and chromatographic purity (from 96% up to 99%). The method was also applied for the isolation of phenylalanine and leucine excreted by amino-acid overproducing microorganisms.